


one step at a time

by illmatchtheminrenown



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 07:26:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illmatchtheminrenown/pseuds/illmatchtheminrenown
Summary: Tsar Nicholas II took the right advice, preventing a revolution, and vowed to help political orphans make something of their lives in the years and decades to follow. One such child, an anarchist's son, grows up alongside the Grand Duchesses - parallel, but not equal lives, as he and the youngest princess forge an especially close friendship.





	1. Prologue/At the Beginning

_In 1917, Russia revolted. They rose up against the quasi-feudal structures that had lasted for centuries and created a new Soviet Union. In the process, they killed many of the aristocracy and royalty, including Tsar Nicholas and every Romanov they could find._

_These are the facts every child for a century has learned in their history books._

_But perhaps, in another world, another time, things might have gone differently. If only…_

*******************

_St. Petersburg - Winter Palace - April 1907_

“And you are certain?” The tsar asked, brow furrowed as he looked around the half-circle of his advisors.

“I’m afraid so, Your Imperial Majesty,” Pyotr Stolypin said, stepping forward slightly. 

“But you, Pyotr, you cannot be in favor of this. You have so long been our ally in strengthening the monarchy,” Nicholas said, a question in his statement. Stolypin took a deep breath; the tsar was not wrong, and it physically pained him to agree with the reformers, nearly _revolutionaries_ , whose advice was being brought forward.

“I believe, sir, that in order to have a monarchy to strengthen, it may be necessary to… not strengthen its powers. For now, at the very least, Your Imperial Majesty.”

Nicholas paced across the floor. His advisors stood back uncomfortably, watching the future of Russia in his steps. After a few long moments, he stood in front of them, head held high and posture tall like the military man he was.

“The tsarina’s grandmother, God rest her soul, ruled not as an absolute monarch, but with the constraints of law and parliament to share power. And she was, I think we can agree, one of the greatest monarchs to ever live. I should be unworthy to call her family if I could not at least attempt to do the same,” he pronounced with gravity. “Let it be done.”

The men gathered released a breath all at once, a small wind carrying immense change.

“There is one other matter, in that case, Your Imperial Majesty,” another advisor said, nervously stepping forward. “That of reparations. Many people have been harmed - inadvertently - by the policies of late. Bloody Sunday, for instance, and the war with Japan, among other instances. Not to call into question your Imperial Majesty’s judgment. But… It is my belief - and that of many others - that the government may wish to make some public gesture of reconciliation and reparation.”

“We are not in the habit of apologizing for quashing unlawfulness, Count,” the tsar said severely. The count shook slightly, but stood his ground.

“No, Your Imperial Majesty, but, forgive me, I would suggest that a… a token gesture, perhaps, would go a long ways towards public goodwill. There are, after all, many more of them than there are of us.” 

After a pause, Nicholas nodded. 

“Wise counsel, Count. What would you suggest? Anyone?” A third man stepped forward, a younger man with thoughtful eyes.

“Ah, Count Ipolitov. What have you to say?” Nicholas gestured him forward. 

“It is the effect on innocents that your enemies will attempt to leverage the most. Therefore, it is to them that you must aim your goodwill.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Offer support to a select group of children who have been left alone by these actions. Sons of dissidents, daughters of rebels. Instead of allowing them to fester in bitterness and rise up against you or your son, you show them mercy and kindness, that they are valued by this new Russia.”

Nicholas began to protest, but then stopped as thoughts of his own children filled his mind. Olga, already trying to be a grown-up at only twelve, eager to become an adult and the mother of her own dynasty. Tatiana, so much wiser than her ten years, with a regal bearing so like her mother’s. Marie, nearly eight, with her wide smile and way of winning everyone over. Anastasia, his own mother’s favorite, not yet six but full of strength and mischief and as bright as her red hair. And Alexei, so long awaited, so fragile but so full of hope for a future only Nicholas could ensure.

“Let it be done as you say.”

_St. Petersburg - The streets - June 1909_

The two years since the meeting in the Winter Palace had been years of intense change - not always comfortable, either. The institution of a constitutional monarchy was a slow, laborious, often painful process for all parties involved. But the promise of a better Russia was the thin thread that bound together rivals from all sides, and the imperial family enjoyed a resurgence in popularity as their reputation for magnanimity and wisdom grew. 

On this hot summer’s day, the family was out in the crowds as part of a parade celebrating the anniversary of the new government. Nicholas and Alexandra sat in one carriage, Olga and Tatiana in another, and Maria and Anastasia in a third, surrounded by other guards and participants. 

As the crowds cried out and cheered, Anastasia looked around restlessly. Although she was born and bred for serenity and dignity, she was still, at heart, an eight-year-old girl with mischief in her heart and fire in her veins. So when she saw a sudden movement along the side of the road, she turned her head automatically, leaning just enough to see the source.

It was a boy, about her age, maybe a little older, untidy and thin in the manner of one who’s never quite had enough to eat, with brown hair flopping out from under a cap. Now that she could see him clearly, she could see that he was the source of the faint cry of her name that she had nearly ignored. Anastasia tried as hard as she could to keep her regal bearing, but she couldn’t help herself: she met the boy’s eyes and smiled. A moment later, he bowed, awkward and stiff as if unused to the gesture, the complete opposite of the smooth gestures of the court and yet somehow all the more moving for it. As he vanished back into the crowd, Anastasia turned her head to keep him in sight as long as she could before the sunlight and distance drowned him out.

_St. Petersburg - The streets beyond the palace - July 1910_

Anastasia slipped down the street to the side of the palace. It had taken her months to plan her escape, and she had finally done it - made it out of the palace all by herself to see the streets of the city the way they were supposed to be seen, not the pretty version her family was shown on big occasions.

What she hadn’t prepared for was the _noise_ , and the people _everywhere_. She found herself being buffeted by the crowds until she found herself face-to-face with some not-particularly-nice looking children a little older than herself.

“You lost, sweetheart?” one asked, approaching her with a wolfish grin and his hands in his pockets. “That dress don’t look like something you scrounged off the streets.” 

“What a pretty hair ribbon, girlie. Mind if I take a closer look?” A girl about Tatiana’s age approached her from behind as three or four of the children closed in around her. She turned and tried to run, but could hear their jeers and footsteps close behind. Frantically turning, she tried to open the doors that lined the alley but couldn’t manage it.

Suddenly, one of the doors flew open and a hand yanked her inside. 

“Are you insane? Look, miss, I don’t know who you are but you don’t belong here! Where are your parents? Who are - oh!” Her rescuer stopped short as he ran his gaze over her face. His hand half reached out to a tendril of red hair escaping her braid before he fell to one knee.

“Your Imperial Highness,” he stammered. She sighed, put out that her anonymity was so transparent.

“Get up,” she ordered casually. As he did, she looked at his face fully for the first time. Brown eyes, a dusty, thin face, unruly brown hair, and a tentative smile that she recognized.

“You,” she breathed. 

“Me?” he asked, confused. After all, there was no reason to believe that a _princess_ would remember a street rat like him.

“You’re the boy from the parade. The boy who bowed. Aren’t you?”

“I’d prefer just Dmitry, if you don’t mind, Princess. Rolls off the tongue more easily,” he answered casually. 

“Dmitry. And who are you, Dmitry? Or to ask the same impertinent question you posed me, where are your parents?”

“Me? I’m no one. My mother’s dead. So’s my father.” Dmitry relished the sudden panic that washed over Anastasia’s face at his words, proud that he had managed to throw royalty off their guard.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” She paused, searching. “How did they die? If you’ll forgive the… impertinence.” He studied her face for a moment, debating whether or not to tell her his story - why should he? But, then again, they were stuck in here until Mikhail and his gang got bored of looking for her, and he might never be this close to her again. 

“My mother’s been gone a while. I don’t remember much about her. But my father… Andrey Petrov, was his name... he was taken away about… three years ago? I was seven. He was… he was an anarchist.” Dmitry pronounced the word carefully, then glanced at the princess sideways to gauge her reaction, but saw nothing but curiosity and compassion. “He believed no one was born better than anyone else, that we all should be able to make our own way. And… they killed him. In a labor camp. He died.” 

A soft hand patted his, the most surprising thing in his life up to this point.

“I’m sorry, Dmitry. I am.” Then a thought occurred to her.

“He was an anarchist? My fam… the government… it’s their fault you’re alone.” Before he could say a word, Anastasia had grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet towards the door. “Come on. There’s somewhere you need to go.”

“Whoa, whoa, Your Highness, wait just a minute,” he cried, putting out a hand to stop her until he had peered around the door to make sure Mikhail’s gang had moved on.

“Well? Can we go now, please?” she asked impatiently. He rolled his eyes.

“Wherever you say... Your Highness.”


	2. one hope then another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dmitry is offered the chance of a lifetime.

As they wove through the streets, Anastasia’s bravado began to wear off. She looked nervously at her companion, envying his ease as he navigated everything from carts on the street to pebbles in the pavement without so much as a blink.

“Tell me a story,” she demanded suddenly. Dmitry looked at her in surprise.

“What?” 

She played with the edges of her sleeves, not making eye contact.

“While we walk. Tell me a story. It’s what Mama does when I’m…” She didn’t finish the sentence, but Dmitry could figure it out. Instead of disdain, though, he almost laughed, a bit of admiration for this feisty little girl creeping into his guarded heart even as he quashed the sentiment.

“That boy back there that was giving you a hard time? That’s Mikhail. He’s been around longer than I have, see, he taught me a lot of things… things I shouldn’t admit to a princess like Your Highness. Might have me arrested. He taught me to pick pockets in a crowd, for one thing.”

Dmitry laughed as the princess’s hands flick to her own pockets.

“Don’t worry, princess, I won’t demonstrate,” he assured her. “Thing is, I got better at it than he thought I would. Better than him. He didn't like that much.” 

Dmitry shoved his hands into his pockets.

“What did he do?” Anastasia asked, eyes wide.

“He tried to teach me a lesson. Stole a scarf my mother gave me. I went crazy trying to find it again.” He stopped, smiled at her expression. “Don't you worry, I stole it right back eventually. Learned to take care of myself and not depend on anyone.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence, but Anastasia walked with more confidence in her step.

Rather than approaching the main gates, where well-wishers, tourists, and job-seekers mingled, Anastasia took them around the side to a smaller gate on the private side of the palace. She calmly approached the guard, a middle-aged man who did a double take as the simply-clothed but obviously royal girl walked up to him.

“Let us in, if you please, Ilia” she commanded. The guard straightened up and inclined in a sharp military bow.

“Finally made it out, Your Imperial Highness?” he asked lightly. She scowled with impatience - a common emotion, Dmitry was learning. “Perhaps you should spend more time learning your duty and less time daydreaming ways to get away from it. We all have our duties, Your Imperial Highness.”

“Ilia Vaganov, if you do not let me in this instant, I will tell my father -”

“That you snuck out of the palace? Anastasia Nikolaevna, you had better learn to make better threats if you want to continue,” the guard said severely. After a moment, his face broke into a grin and he stepped aside, opening the gate. As his gaze fell on Dmitry, he shook his head.

“Be careful in there, boy. They may bring you in, but you’ll never be-”

“That’s quite enough, Ilia. Thank you. Dmitry, this way, please.” With all the imperiousness a nine-year-old could muster, Anastasia seized Dmitry’s sleeve and yanked him after her. 

Dmitry tried his best not to be overwhelmed as they walked through the palace. Instead of focusing on the grand tapestries and carvings lining the walls, or the feel of the cool marble floors beneath his thin soles, he focused on how the girl beside him was transforming. She pulled nervously at her skirt to smooth out wrinkles, ran her hands through her hair, slowed her pace of walking. Instinctively, he reached up to pull off his own cap and tried to tuck the threadbare hems of his sleeves before realizing that it didn’t much matter.

After a few minutes winding through the maze of hallways and doors, Anastasia stopped them in front of a large but otherwise unassuming wooden door. Down the hall, faint voices echoed as a man in spectacles stumbled out from a room, followed by a dark-haired, glamorous woman holding a hankie to her eyes. Dmitry stared at them as they began walking down the hall towards him and the princess, looking away only when the man made appraising eye contact with him, then offered up a small smile and wink to him and a bow to Anastasia, who hardly noticed.

Unperturbed, Anastasia rapped on the door briskly, then entered, Dmitry trailing behind her. 

A man of average height, in well-made but unadorned clothes, stood at a broad desk with his back to them. 

“Papa!”

At Anastasia’s greeting, the man turned around, and Dmitry found himself staring into the face of Nicholas Romanov, emperor of all Russia. He had no time to process the sight, because the most powerful man in the empire staggered back under the sudden weight of a nine-year-old grand duchess.

“Nastya, sweetheart, to what do I owe this delightful interruption?” he asked in French as he set her down. Anastasia began to answer in French as well.

“Papa, I found someone for you to send to school! He’s…” She trailed off, looking back at Dmitry, and gestured him forward as she switched back to Russian.

“Papa, may I present Dmitry Andreyevich Petrov. His father died in a labor camp.” Nicholas understood his daughter’s meaning, but spared her a stern glare.

“Later, Anastasia Nikolaevna, we will be having a discussion about how you came to know of this boy.” The tsar then approached Dmitry with an appraising gaze. Dmitry knew he should bow, but couldn't make his body obey, instead holding his head high.

“Hm. No sense of etiquette, though that is not surprising. Dmitry Andreyevich… your father was Andrey Petrov, then?”

Dmitry found his voice at last.

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty. Andrey Kirillovich Petrov. Do you know that name?” he dared to ask. Nicholas shook his head.

“No. And that is good news, for you at least, my boy. How old are you?”

“Eleven, sir.”

“Hm. And do you want to go to school?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Listen well, then. This is how we do such things. You will be admitted as a scholarship student to a boarding school here in St. Petersburg. There, you will be expected to apply yourself to your studies, comport yourself with dignity, and make every effort to make our investment in your future worthwhile. You will not be publicly recognized as a beneficiary of the imperial family - your patron will remain anonymous. To hold you accountable, and to teach you proper manners, you will be required to present yourself at the palace once a month, or any other time when your presence is requested, where you will spend a day or two as a guest and student of our household. Are these terms acceptable to you, Dmitry Andreyevich?”

Dmitry could not speak for a moment. The hopeful part of him whispered that this was the opportunity his parents would have always wanted for him, to make something more of himself than the legacy they could leave him. But Dmitry was a Russian rat through and through, and that voice told him to be careful of owing a debt to anyone, especially someone with that kind of power. 

In the end, though, it was a pair of kind, innocent blue eyes that made the decision for him.

“Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you,” he replied, simple but honest.

“Good. Now, I don’t care to waste time, so we will begin immediately. I assume you do have some possessions beyond those on your person?” the tsar asked. When Dmitry nodded, he continued. “You will return to your home, collect your belongings, and return here. You will spend the next few days here while arrangements are made, and you will then attend St. Anthony’s for the foreseeable future.”

He paused, considering.

“Am I right in thinking that your current… living situation is not among those who would be glad of your good fortune?”

“That’s the polite way to say it, yes, sir,” Dmitry answered, a grin creeping back onto his face.

“Someone will accompany you. A guard, perhaps… no, that would be too conspicuous. Ah, I know.” He rang a bell, and a servant appeared within moments. “Fetch Ilia’s boy,” he ordered. The man bowed and backed out of the room. Dmitry hardly had noted Anastasia’s eyes rolling with exasperation when the door opened and the servant returned, a sullen young man in tow. The boy was in that awkward stage between man and boy, somewhere around fourteen or fifteen. He had the makings of a handsome man, with dark hair and eyes and a jaw that was hardening into a strong line, but his tidy quasi-uniform hung loosely on his frame, and his eyes betrayed a certain disdain for his present task.

“Prompt as always. Wonderful. You will please accompany this young man to gather his belongings and return here. You will just ensure that no harm comes to him while he does so.” The boy nodded sharply, then beckoned Dmitry with a glare and quick gesture.

As they walked, Dmitry relaxed a little bit - being around people who were uncomfortable put him oddly at ease.

“What’s your name, then?” The dark boy surprised Dmitry by addressing him.

“Dmitry. Dmitry Petrov. You?”

“Gleb Vaganov. Good to meet you, young comrade,” he said, offering a hand to the younger boy. Away from the palace walls, Gleb seemed to lighten, looking around the city with obvious pleasure as they walked. 

“Vaganov… Wait, your father is that guard, right?” Dmitry asked, putting the names together at last. Gleb grimaced.

“Indeed,” he said shortly.

“Don’t sound so happy about it,” Dmitry remarked. Gleb glared at him - something his face seemed to do quite easily - but then relaxed.

“I’m certain you can understand… wanting to be someone other than your father,” he began stiffly. “My father is a good man. But one who lives in the past. He is so concerned with…” Not wanting to betray his father to a scruffy little orphan, Gleb stopped his words. 

“Let me guess… with orders, and protocol, and all that?” Dmitry guessed. “He seems like that kind of fella.” Gleb did not answer directly, but spoke again.

“He does not see that we have a duty to create a new world! We have been given the sort of opportunity that history rarely gives - a peaceful revolution! We must seize it, not just stand… stand _still!_ It is people like you and I who are the future. The monarchy may stay, or fade into nothingness. They were given _everything_ , and until recently, they gave back _nothing_.” His face shone, looking more like a fierce man than a boy in those moments.

“But not anymore,” Dmitry felt compelled to add, though he could hardly believe he was defending royalty. 

“No. And we must take advantage of that! Before they change their minds,” Gleb chuckled. “The new world has no need of a family living in a fairytale. If they are joining the real world with the rest of us, if their children, perhaps, are better... perhaps there is a chance.”

They came to a stop at the end of the street. Gleb gestured for Dmitry to go on ahead.

“Go on, I’ll keep an eye out from here.” Dmitry grinned at his unexpected… not friend, by any means, but ally perhaps. Gleb did not grin back, but neither did he frown.

*****  
Dmitry tugged at his jacket sleeves before giving up. He was expected to show up at the family’s dinner that evening for his first “lesson” and presentation to the rest of his patrons, but there would be no making him into a presentable young man. He’d have to settle for just “clean” - which was also a novelty. He had sat a little too long in the bath, enjoying the steam rising from the hot water and marveling at the way the dirt just floated off his skin with the soap suds. This was something he could get used to.

As he walked down the hall, still trying to smooth down his unruly hair, a door opened and the man from earlier walked out. 

“That won’t help, you know,” the man said, gesturing to Dmitry’s futile attempts at taming his hair. “You’ll need a bit of oil to make it stay. Come, come,” he gestured to his door. 

Dmitry hesitated, the day’s events not quite able to overcome the years of wariness learned on the streets. Seeming to sense this, the man laughed.

“Don’t worry about me, my boy, I’m not going to harm you! Ah, but we are strangers still, that’s the problem! Count Vladimir Popov, at your service!” He smiled and offered a large hand to Dmitry, who hesitantly shook it and gave his own name.

“Now, come, come, let’s see if we can’t polish you up a bit, hm?” The count bustled Dmitry into his apartment, where he produced a beautiful bottle of hair oil and briskly applied it to the boy’s head without so much as a “by your leave,” chatting away the whole while. Before he knew it, Dmitry was being sent back out into the hallway, a little tidier.

“Must make a good impression, hm? A word of advice, my boy. There is always an advantage to be taken, if you look for it. Always a little bit of cream to skim off the top, without a soul noticing. Just my experience, eh? But… good luck! You’ll be splendid, I’m sure!” Beaming, Vladimir shut the door, leaving Dmitry slightly stunned and puzzled.

The dinner itself, however, was even more puzzling. Anastasia whispered to him that they always invited the scholarship students to a family dinner first because, when the family dined alone, they ate simply. He found the family themselves to be the most puzzling, more so than the etiquette that the tsarina sternly but kindly imparted to him as they ate. The eldest Grand Duchess, Olga, was kind, but a little on the moody side, seeming to be absorbed in her own thoughts for much of the evening. And Maria was disinterested in him altogether (much more interested in the handsome footmen who served them), except for the brief moments in which he relayed his trek with Gleb to retrieve his belongings - she brightened up considerably at that, before turning her charms on her papa to wheedle for something or the other.

Oddly enough, it was the second sister, Tatiana ( _“Tanya, please, you must call me Tanya here”_ ) who was the kindest to him. The rumors on the street claimed that, though she was beautiful, she was refined to a fault, a snob, too much like her strong-willed mother. Elegant and refined she was, true, but gracious as well, careful to gently correct him and converse with him as kindly as possible.

Upon reflection, he suspected a little of it might have to do with her clear fondness, like everyone else in the room, for Anastasia, who seemed to have made it her mission to teach Dmitry everything about everything in the span of a single night. By the time he departed the next morning for the school, not only was Dmitry’s stomach pleasantly full for the first time in years, but his head was full to bursting as he forced himself to commit every detail to memory.

As he walked out, his single bag of possession in hand, he noticed a delicate handkerchief on the ground. He stooped to pick it up, feeling the delicate, expensive texture of the material. Unbidden, Vladimir’s words from the previous night rose into his head. _If you look for it..._

Dmitry tucked the handkerchief in his pocket, then hurried away. He had to make one quick detour on his way to the school.


	3. welcome to my petersburg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anastasia gets her first real look at St. Petersburg, through the eyes of one who knows it best.

_St. Petersburg - 1911_

Saturdays were Dmitry’s favorite day of the week, occupied by neither lessons nor church, and so the perfect opportunity for running a bit of business on the side.

“Pleasure doing business with you, ma’am,” he said, tipping his cap and winking at the woman to whom he had just sold a forged passport. It hadn’t taken him long to master the art of taking a mental picture of every type of document on the tsar’s desk whenever he met with him, a skill that proved quite lucrative as the new regime struggled to keep up with demands for documents and used high prices as a solution to slow the tide. Between forgeries and the trinkets he smuggled from the palace (a lost pearl button here, a scrap of lace there), he found himself, at twelve, a budding baron of the St. Petersburg black markets. 

A baron, however - not a king. That title, he had learned, belonged to one Count Vladimir Popov, his benefactor from his first day at the palace. 

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Popov had said on the first day they encountered each other selling “genuine Romanov” trinkets. The count proved a valuable ally, nudging Dmitry towards the best buyers and taking the younger man under his wing. In return, Dmitry used his best facade of youthful innocence to deflect suspicion away from them both.

As Dmitry took in the view of his city this dusky afternoon, a small figure caught his eye. A girl in a brown coat and plaid skirt, her red-blonde hair held back by a simple band. He couldn’t help himself; as she passed by, not even noticing him, he said in a low voice, “Good afternoon, Princess.”

He was rewarded by seeing her jump and look around before relaxing into a glare when she saw who had seen through her attempts at being incognito.

“Dmitry,” she replied coldly, head held high. She attempted to walk away, but he casually fell into step beside her. She rolled her eyes, but allowed him to continue.

“Sneaking out of the palace again, Princess? Shouldn’t you be getting back? It’s getting a little late,” he suggested, raising an eyebrow. Anastasia rounded on him coldly.

“When a guard in training is less of a stick in the mud than you, that should tell you something,” she snapped. Barely abashed, Dmitry skipped a step as he continued by her side.

“Corrupting the incorruptible Gleb, are we now?” he teased. “I didn’t think that was possible.” He could see her fighting her instinct for mockery and mischief, and it finally won out as she broke into a grin.

“It isn’t, I don’t think. But Marie and I have decided to make it a project. I think her odds are better than mine, though. She’s nicer than me. But I’m smarter,” Anastasia confided with a certain amount of glee. She paused, frowned at him again.

“You aren’t going to tell on me, are you?” she asked.

“I should. Even princesses have to follow the rules,” he answered. A fierce glare stopped him in his tracks.

“I should remind you that you are also out when you aren’t supposed to be. And who do you think will be in more trouble for it - me or you?” Anastasia demanded. Dmitry cursed inwardly. For all her good breeding, this little girl would make an excellent con.

“All right, fine. I’ll make you a deal. You don’t tell on me, and I don’t tell on you. I guess I understand needing to get away,” he said grudgingly. Anastasia beamed and skipped along at his side, taking in the streets with eager eyes. As they walked, she started to turn down an alley he knew was far from safe. 

“Anastasia, no!” he hissed, grabbing her arm. A few people around them did a double take, their eyes flicking from him to Anastasia before moving on. Dmitry grimaced and pulled her aside.

“I can’t call you that out here,” he said, glancing around. “Look, people see a redhead who kinda looks like the tsar’s daughter, they won’t think much of it. People hear the name Anastasia, they won’t think much of it. But put the two together, and you’ve got a recipe for the wrong kind of attention,” he explained quickly. 

“You mean I need a secret name? Like in stories!” she enthused, bouncing up and down. Dmitry almost laughed.

“Sure, just like that. It has to be something you’ll remember to respond to.”

“How about Anna?” she offered. Dmitry shook his head.

“Too obvious.”

“Elizaveta?”

“Will you remember to answer to it?” Anastasia paused, then shook her head. Dmitry was silent for a moment, running through his head, until-

“How about… Anya?” he suggested. “It’s close enough to your name that you’ll remember it, but it’s common enough to avoid notice. What do you think?”

“Anya,” she said, testing the name out. “Anya. I think… I think I like it.”

Distracted by the grand duchess, Dmitry didn’t pay attention to where they were walking, and instead of turning down a street he knew well, they took a wrong turn and found themselves face to face with a quartet of his schoolmates, the teenage boys sharing a bottle of stolen liquor on the back stoop of a building. Before Dmitry could decide whether to continue on or retreat, one of the boys spotted them.

“Dmitry Andreyevich! Shouldn’t you be at your books like a good boy?” the boy slurred, getting up and sauntering over. “And you brought a new girlfriend, eh. What’s your name, sweetheart?” he leered at Anastasia.

“She’s not my girlfriend. And we’re leaving. Come on.” Heedless of etiquette, Dmitry seized Anastasia’s hand, felt it close tightly around his fingers, and began to walk off. 

“Hey, what’s your hurry? Come on, Petrov, share a drink with us! Or do you think you’re too good for us?” another asked, closing in.

“Leave us alone,” Dmitry snapped, trying to step in front of Anastasia. One of the boys snuck up behind her and yanked her hair, hard enough that she cried out.

“Looks like your protector isn’t so tough, little girl,” the hair-tugging boy sneered. “Who are you, anyhow?”

“Little sister, I bet. Bastard, just like him, am I right?” the first boy said, the insult rolling off his tongue as casually as commenting on the weather. “The only time St. Anthony’s allows itself to be… _polluted_ with people like you is when a man of good breeding gets trapped by some little slut into paying for a child he doesn’t want and doesn’t even know is his.”

“Don’t forget the tsar’s scholarships. Raise up the sons and daughters of _trash_ and _traitors_ to mix with loyal Russians,” another chimed in.

“So which is it, eh, Petrov? Are you a bastard, or are you a traitor?” the first boy asked, calmly stepping up to Dmitry. Dmitry’s eyes flicked around, looking for a way out, but when he saw none, he grimly braced himself for what he knew was coming and prayed that Anastasia would have the smarts to run.

Before he could speak or move, the boy hit him across the face.

“You will answer when your betters ask you a question!” he snarled. Fire flared through Dmitry’s veins, and he lunged towards his attacker just as another boy grabbed Anastasia.

“Anya!” he shouted, trying to reach her. Before he could, his assailant had grabbed at his arm again, and he was forced to defend himself. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy who had seized Anya lying on the ground, cradling a sensitive part of his anatomy, with the princess herself glaring down at him before turning with a wild cry to grab a hot poker from a nearby barrel and swing it at another. 

The fight was over almost as quickly as it had begun. Dmitry’s solid punches, combined with Anya’s shrieking ferocity, terrified the boys into a quick retreat. 

“Wanna see what else I can do?” Anastasia shrieked to their retreating backs. Dmitry had to grab her by the waist to stop her pursuing them all the way down the street.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, I think they got the message,” he laughed, letting her go. “How does a princess learn how to fight like that?”

“I didn’t learn, I just… got mad… and… I'm the least important one. My sisters are older and my brother will be tsar some day. Even grand duchesses get picked on...” she trailed off, looking at him anxiously. “You won’t tell, will you?” Dmitry couldn’t help laughing again.

“We have a deal, remember?” He hesitated, then threw caution out the window. “Come on, Anya,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him back to the streets.

“Where are we going?” she asked, trotting to catch up.

“Everywhere. This is my city.” Dmitry grinned, turning around to face her with his arms outstretched, as if he himself was the welcoming committee for the whole city.

“It’s my city too,” Anya said indignantly. He only smiled back.

“Not the same way. I figured I’d grow up in the gutters and the streets of St. Petersburg. I did, up until some girl and her father plucked me out of the mud,” he added slyly. “But I already learned everything there is to know about this city. ‘S the only way to get good at getting by.”

“Get by?” Anastasia asked, nervous. Memories of the first story he had told her - _Mikhail? Taught me to pick pockets in a crowd_ \- rushed to mind. Dmitry shrugged.

“The only way to survive is to know what everyone else needs. I learned to barter when I needed a blanket, steal bread when I was hungry. I’m not stupid, you know,” he added, not looking up. “I had to use my head every second, or I’d end up… well, you can imagine.” The pair walked by a small, rough-looking market, where an older woman haggled over some vegetables and a man held up a bit of cloth to judge its sturdiness. Anya’s eyes got wider and wider the more of the city she took in - the beggar on the corner, the coughing workers, the clean but tense middle class walking on the sidewalks. She jumped back at a passing car, only to bump into a street sweeper. She apologized profusely to the young woman, who looked down at her with tired eyes and a murmur of excuse.

“I never knew it was like this,” she breathed. “Is it? Is this what it’s always like?”

Dmitry shoved his hands in his pockets.

“What it boils down to is this: some survive, some don’t, and that’s a fact. Some people just give up. But me? I won’t. Not ever.” An idea leapt to mind, and he tugged on Anya’s sleeve. “Hey, come this way.”

Dmitry led Anya through the streets, weaving in and out of the crowds with expert ease until he reached an overlook and stopped so suddenly that she almost collided with him.

“Where are we?” she asked, looking around.

“I liked - _like_ \- to come here sometimes. Quite a view, eh? You can see everything, from the spires to the piers. Oh, see that quay, down there?” he asked, pointing below them. “That’s the best place to sell… trinkets and such,” he trailed off hastily. “There’s nowhere else in the whole city where you can feel it surrounding you. Palaces when you look up, alleyways when you look down.”

“You really love this city, don’t you?” Anastasia asked. “But I don’t understand, how can you, when you’ve had so many troubles?” Dmitry shrugged noncommittally.

“Dunno. It’s all I’ve know. It’s funny, I guess, you can hate it all you like, but there’s always going to be a small part of you that loves it,” he answered. “Look, people like you, you don’t have to worry about what’s coming next. But me? I have to see what’s ahead. My father taught me that. I have to grow up. The sooner the better,” he added. 

“You never talk about him,” Anya said quietly. “Do you remember him?”

“Of course! He used to take me to places like this. Put me up on his shoulder so I could see farther than even the tallest men. ‘Bet you can see all the way to Finland from up there, Dima!’” Dmitry couldn’t help a grin as he remembered his father’s steady shoulders and jovial voice.

“Dima?”

“It’s what he would call me,” Dmitry shrugged, retreating back into himself. The pair stood for a minute, staring out at the late afternoon sun over the skyline.

“It really is beautiful,” Anya offered. “Thank you for showing me _your_ St. Petersburg…” She hesitated, then plunged on. “Thank you… Dima.” She didn’t meet his eyes, but out of the corner of her glance, she saw him rock back on his feet and shudder. After a long moment, he turned to her and smiled, that mischievous grin she was learning meant that everything was all right, at least for now.

“Thank _you_ … Anya.”

And they stared at the sky until they could delay no longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love to the squad ;) And thank you so much to everyone who's been leaving kind comments - I know I'm not the most prompt at updating, but I really appreciate your support and am glad you're enjoying the story! Keep it coming :)


	4. someone holds her safe and warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gleb plays the hero and the villain in the span of one chapter. It's really very exhausting.

_St. Petersburg - 1913_

Gleb stared up at the gleaming facade of the Winter Palace as he trudged along the perimeter. Even having spent the better part of his life there, the sheer grandeur still overwhelmed him when seen all at once like this. He supposed that was the point - after all, his father had told him that was why the family had decided against moving to the Alexander Palace instead. With the monarchy already diminished, they needed all the symbols of power they could hold on to.

But he was seventeen now, and not easily awed or distracted by displays of history and power. Gleb spent his days poring over philosophy texts, hidden under pillows or in the pockets of coats to avoid detection. He read Herzen, and Lavrov, and Marx of course. The more he read, the more he grew frustrated with the slow pace of change and the continued dominance of people like his employers: hereditary nobles who owned the means of production and much of the product as well.

Such beliefs, of course, did not endear him further to his fellow guards or his father, but Gleb was well on his way to finding other friends who shared his ideals of encouraging participation across the population. More and more, he had begun to notice a chill settling over his heart with regards to the family he worked for, and a certain disdain for those who served so willingly.

Caught up in his philosophical musing, Gleb barely noticed the sound of a car backfiring on the street beyond the walls. He was startled from his thoughts by a frightened yelp and a clattering noise. Across the plaza, a small figure with fair hair curled on the ground, with a hat, small purse, and coins scattered all around. As Gleb hurried over to help, he recognized the girl.

“Good day, Your Imperial Highness. Here, allow me,” he said, mustering up as much politeness as he could. When he glanced at Maria again, she was still shaking, hands tight upon the pavement. For a moment, he couldn’t understand why she was so affected by an ordinary noise. But then he remembered.

Only a few months earlier, Maria and her sister Olga had been chosen to accompany the tsar to the opera. Tatiana had been intended to go, but fell ill with a cold, leaving Maria to take her place. Unfortunately, that had been the night that an assassin had targeted Pyotr Stolypin. No one knew how much violence the girls had seen, but Gleb suddenly had a pretty good idea.

“It’s just a truck backfiring,” he said, this time more gently. “It’s alright. Here, let me help you up.” He stood, brushed off his knees, and offered her a hand. After a moment, she placed a small hand in his and allowed him to help her right herself. He paused, and noticing her hands and chin still trembling, made a decision he hoped he wouldn’t regret.

“You’re still shaking,” he noted calmly. “I was about to head back and make some tea, would you like a cup? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” he added, seeing her eyes flicker to the palace.

“Yes. Thank you,” she finally said, smiling tentatively. Gleb felt an unfamiliar, unexpected squirming sensation somewhere in his abdomen, but quickly pushed it aside as he led the princess across the grounds. He glanced back at her a few times, but pretended not to see her sniffle and pick a few stray leaves from her hair (even as he scolded himself for trying to preserve the dignity of royalty). 

Gleb led Maria around the side to the guards’ staff building, slipping in a side door and gesturing her to follow him to a small kitchen.

“Staff is here sometimes, but we usually just serve ourselves,” he explained as he filled up the kettle and put it on heat. Maria’s eyes followed his every movement. Coughing, he awkwardly sat down across from her, but looked her straight in the eye, defying her to comment on his lack of asking permission. She glared at him, but her good manners won out, and she cast around for something to converse about. Noticing a bit of music sticking out of a bag, she latched on to that.

“Is that music yours, Gleb?” she asked, pointing. As he got up to finish the tea, he followed her gaze and shrugged, cautious of revealing too much.

“It is,” he said abruptly. “Surprised, Your Highness? Should music not be the purview of a lowly guard?” Gleb couldn’t help the bitterness that seeped into his voice, even as Maria threw her head back and laughed.

“It should not be the purview of plenty of aristocrats, I assure you,” she commented wryly. “Thank you,” she added as he handed her a cup of tea. “And I think you had better call me Maria.”

“If you wish. Maria.” They sipped their tea in silence for a moment.

“What do you play?” she asked. 

“A little piano, a little violin. Balakirev, Tchaikovsky. I’ve become quite fond of Rimsky-Korsokov lately. Nearly wearing out this old paper, see?” He held up the paper, demonstrating its worn edges.

“ _Scheherazade_?” Maria asked. Gleb brightened.

“Of course. The third movement in particular. I know it’s the simplest, but it’s beautiful. Even with those thirty-second-note runs, I just-” He broke off, self-conscious. Maria seemed to sense his discomfort and rose to leave.

“Thank you for your hospitality, but I really ought to be going. But I’m very grateful for you coming to my rescue.”

“I suppose we all need saving, sometimes.” The casual words slipped out, much to Gleb’s chagrin. Maria only smiled and continued.

“And for your discretion in not… drawing attention to my embarrassment.”

Gleb softened.

“There is nothing to be embarrassed about, Maria. We all carry memories we wish we did not.”

He walked her towards the door. She paused for a moment.

“It was so lovely to speak Russian again!” she cried out, half-ecstatic. “We speak only French, most of the time. At least in public. And we are always in public these days,” she added, frowning slightly. “I have missed this. Thank you. Gleb.”

*****

Gleb was still thinking of this as he tried to pay attention to the man speaking in front of the crowd. At his side were Nikita and Boris, both nineteen and filled with equal parts idealistic fervour and genuine working-class fury. 

“The tsar gives us reforms to keep us quiet! Will we be quiet any longer?” he shouted.

“NO!” the men called back.

“Will we put our faith in rich men, or will we take our fate into our own hands?”

“OURS!” came the reply. Gleb joined in, calling out replies as the men grew agitated and the speaker laid out his vision of a more fair Russia, one in which the working class threw off centuries of oppression to take control of the country. The crowd began to press together. 

And that was when he saw them out of the corner of his eye: a tall boy with brown hair, and, gripping his arm, a red-haired girl whose face had drained of all color. Even as Gleb watched, a burly trio of men bumped up against the pair, sneering at them when Dmitry tried to shield Anya. They were getting moved further and further from the exit, even as the crowd became more and more agitated. One of the big men gave Anastasia a long look before muttering something to his friend.

It was at that moment that Gleb made his decision - even though he didn’t like it one bit - and began pushing through the throng.

Neither Dmitry nor Anya had intended things to get this out of hand. Anya had heard someone on the street talking about a meeting to discuss grievances, and she had decided on the spot to go, incognito, and hear what people were saying about her family. Dmitry could come or not, she had declared, but she was going. 

That decision, however, had not turned out the way she expected, and now Dmitry was trying to keep her physically safe while muttering in her ear to keep her from giving herself away.

“It’s alright, Anya, we’re gonna get out of here. You have to stay calm. Anya, look at me. You can’t draw attention. I’ve got you. Come on,” he murmured, a constantly stream of reassurance as he looked frantically for a way through the crowd.

A tall, dark figure materialized right in front of them. Dmitry instinctively raised his arm to pull Anya back, but was stayed by a familiar voice and scowl.

“Are you insane? What are you two doing here? Are you trying to start a riot?” Gleb whispered, trying to suppress his anger enough to keep his voice down.

“We didn’t know it was going to be… this…” Dmitry hissed. Gleb rolled his eyes, then glanced around. 

“This is no place for children. Least of all _her_. We’re going. Come on.” With another glare in their direction, Gleb began to make way for them through the crowd. Boris spotted them and called out.

“Vaganov! Where are you going? Off to play with children instead of rallying like men?” he teased. Gleb groaned.

“This is going to take me months to live down,” he grumbled to Anya. 

They emerged onto the street, hurrying down the block a safe distance away before Gleb whirled on the other two.

“They were just starting to take me seriously! And now I’m back to square one, all because you two couldn’t mind your own business! You don’t belong in there!” he yelled.

“Oh, but you do, don’t you, _comrade_?” Dmitry snarled back. “Tell me, did you like that picture they were painting? Taking Anya and her family and shaking them until the money fell out of them, or if not money, then blood?”

“ _Anya_ ,” Gleb scoffed. “She’s no more ‘Anya’ than you are a prince, Petrov. Children, playing at games while the rest of us try to do our duty and create a future for our country! You should be with us, Dmitry, not playing lapdog to-” Gleb cut off suddenly, catching sight of Anastasia’s face, drained of color as it had been in the crowd.

“I’m sorry, Your Imp… er… Anastasia,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply-”

“Yes you did.” She paused. “Do you really believe all of that, Gleb? That we… that my family… deserves to…”

“No! God, no.” Gleb felt sick at the thought. Anastasia’s pale, frightened face swam before him, blurring into her sister’s bright eyes and cheerful smile. “I swear, I would never let anything get that far. You have to believe me.”

She looked at him for a long moment. She might only be twelve, he thought, but something in those eyes haunted him, like ghosts from another world. Gleb could not meet that gaze, but it softened (even as Dmitry’s glare did not).

“I believe you. It’s alright, Dima, he’s telling the truth,” she added, putting her small hand on Dmitry’s arm. But he kept glaring at Gleb.

"Don't make me command you, Dmitry," she snapped.

"I'd like to see you try!" he answered, meeting her glare with his own, but he looked away from Gleb and down at her, glower fading into a sort of exasperated fondness that made Gleb look away. 

“Dmitry? Anya? What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you were anywhere near that… meeting, or whatever they are calling it.” Vlad’s booming voice startled all three young people. Gleb slunk off before he could be confronted by the count, only catching bits of their conversation as he left.

“We’re fine, Vlad… It wasn’t his fault!... Him? No, it’s alright, we know him… Tea would be great, thanks…”

******

The next week, Gleb returned to his quarters after a shift on duty before another (smaller) meeting, only to find a small stack of paper on the small table by his bed. He picked them up and immediately recognized the first movement of _Scheherazade_. A small card, made of thicker paper than the rest, fluttered to the floor. He stooped and picked it up to read the delicate handwriting.

_Music is too beautiful to be so tattered. Play this a thousand and one times, and see if it saves you. -M_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to the squad who encourages this, and to the really lovely commenters I've gotten since my last post! Again, I apologize for the delay in posting, but I'm hoping the next couple updates will be faster!


	5. the biggest con in history

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dmitry might be starting to see a future for himself.

_St. Petersburg - The outlook - March 1914_

Spring had nearly arrived, and the people of St. Petersburg, young and old, were rejoicing in the thaw. A pair of young people sat on an overlook, gazing out at the city. The boy - nearly a young man - had a pencil and paper in hand, while the girl swung her feet to and fro, eyes closed.

“I wish it was like this always,” Anya said dreamily. She kept her eyes closed as the faint breeze washed across her face, cool and damp from the water.

“No, you don’t,” Dmitry answered without even looking up from his sketching. “You’d get bored and wish for the snow. Then you’d get cold and wish for the sun.”

Anya smacked the pencil out of his hand without even opening her eyes.

“Hey!” he groaned, leaning down to pick it back up. “Watch it!”

“I don’t have to watch it. I’m a princess,” Anastasia taunted with a toss of her hair.

“Not out here you’re not, _Anya_. And even when you are - doesn’t mean I can’t fight back!” Anya squealed as she found herself pulled backwards, tumbling back in a very undignified way onto the damp pavement. Dmitry loomed over her, grinning with that smug, sure smirk that she knew all too well - and that made her want to wipe it right off his face.

“Sorry,” he said, still grinning.

“No, you’re not,” she grumbled.

“Eh, half-sorry,” he admitted cheerfully as he reached a hand down to help her up. Anya allowed him to, but instead of pulling herself up, she yanked hard. Even though Dmitry certainly outweighed her, she caught him in a rare off-his-guard moment and he stumbled over his lanky legs, joining her sprawled out on the cold stones. After a shout of outrage and an elbow in her ribs, he subsided into laughs alongside her. 

“So what were you sketching, anyway?” Anya leaned over and picked up his discarded sketchbook. Dmitry sat up, running a hand through his tousled hair, and tried to sound casual as she opened the sketches.

“Just buildings. Ideas. Nothing important.” He reached over to try to take it back, but Anya held out what he called her “princess hand,” imperiously making him stop short. She flipped through the pages.

“ _Dima_. These are beautiful. Since when did you become an artist?” she breathed, paging through.

“Architecture, not art, thank you very much,” he grumbled. “And… I dunno. A few months ago, I guess.”

It had, in fact, been a few months ago, before Christmas, when one of the masters had pulled him aside after noticing the cracks that appeared in his carefully-maintained devil-may-care demeanor when they discussed the physics of buildings in the city. This teacher, as it turned out, had a particular expertise in architecture and had long been hoping for a student who shared that interest. And when the teacher showed up with a stack of books and materials for Dmitry, he confessed to his young student that his cousin, a wealthy count by the name of Ipolitov, had taken an interest in young architects and was placing his resources at their disposal.

“Is that what you want to do, d’you think?” she asked softly. Dmitry shrugged.

“Maybe. If they let a street rat charity case anywhere near any of the apprenticeships.”

“I’m sure they would! You could always ask-”

“No,” he said, more sharply than he meant to. Seeing her face, he amended, “No. Thank you, but… I’ve already taken enough. I gotta start earning it myself at some point.” He extracted the notebook from her hands and stood up.

“Shouldn’t you be getting back, Your Highness?” he asked, teasing. “Getting ready for the Dowager Empress’s arrival?”

“You got the title right,” Anastasia noted with pleasure. Dmitry allowed himself to crack a grin.

“How long is she staying?” he asked

“A few weeks, at least. We have Tanya’s ball here, and then we’ll all go to Belgrade for the wedding.” Tatiana had, to the surprise of many, beaten Olga to the altar, as the Serbian crown prince Alexander had proposed after a lengthy correspondence. The Romanovs were hosting a ball in their honor, but the wedding itself and its festivities were to be held in the groom’s country.

Anya eyed Dmitry, debating whether or not to spill the other piece of news. 

“I think you’ll like Nana. She can seem scary, but don’t let her fool you, she’s so kind,” she said. Dmitry looked up sharply.

“What? I’m… Anya, what did you mean by that?” he demanded. She turned to him with a grin.

“Papa is going to present all of the students under his patronage to Nana when she arrives. Before the ball.”

“Anya… I can’t… I’m not _suitable_ ,” he said, quoting with his fingers in the air as he repeated one of the least offensive insults that had been hurled at him over the past few years.

“Yes. Yes you are.” Anya squeezed his shoulder, suddenly serious. “Besides, I’ll be right there the whole time.”

Dmitry looked down at her upturned, earnest face, and sighed.

“In that case… how could I worry?”

_St. Petersburg - Winter Palace_

“Stop fidgeting, would you?” Vlad scolded Dmitry as he adjusted the boy’s tie for the fourth time. “You’re going to make _me_ nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” Dmitry answered defensively - but a little too quickly, and his voice cracked briefly, betraying him. Vlad looked at him carefully.

“Be careful with your heart, my boy,” he warned.

“My heart? What does my heart have to do with anything?” Vlad couldn’t tell if Dmitry was deflecting or genuinely oblivious, but he didn’t have time to find out because, at that moment, a tap sounded outside. The door swung open and a dark-haired countess in a brightly colored dress stuck her head around the door.

“Vlad, aren’t you ready yet?” she demanded, though with a smile.

“Of course, my darling. What do you think, Lily? Is he presentable?” Vlad gestured to Dmitry, who pulled himself taller to face the Countess Malevsky-Malevitch with a roguish grin. She bit back a smile, seeing how Vlad’s tutelage had crept into the boy’s bearing and smile.

“Very nice, dear. You’ll do just fine. If you aren’t late - come on!”

When they entered the ballroom, Dmitry had to suppress a gasp. As used to the palace as he was after these years, he had never been present to see it at its fullest splendour, full of light and music, with glittering jewels bedecking every aristocrat and delicate, gleaming glasses of champagne. Everything about it was _other_ to him, and he couldn’t help wondering what his father would say if he could see his son, an orphan and street rat and occasional thief, permitted to be in the ballroom of the imperial palace.

At the center of it all stood the Romanovs, picture-perfect in their formal attire. The tsar and tsarina, glittering in silver and white and gold. Olga, tall and elegant in lilac; Tatiana every bit the glowing bride-to-be on her fiance’s arm; Marie, golden-haired and bright in pink, scanning the room as if looking for something among the guards who inconspicuously lined the walls; and Anastasia, standing closest to the imposing older woman in maroon and diamonds. She caught his eye and grinned, and he migrated towards the royal party.

The tsar noticed Dmitry approaching and smiled a reassuring welcome. Dmitry bowed stiffly to him and the tsarina, still not used to making his body bend before someone else. Anastasia could barely contain herself, radiating energy next to her grandmother as Nicholas led Dmitry up to them.

“Mama, may I present another of our scholarship students? Dmitry Andreyevich Petrov.” Dmitry looked into her eyes for a brief moment, equal for a split second before he bowed.

“Dmitry. I know that name. This is your young friend, isn’t it, Anastasia?” The Dowager turned to Anastasia at her side, who smiled and answered in the affirmative. Turning back to Dmitry, she studied him for a moment. He swallowed hard and kept his head high, refusing to be cowed by her inquisitive stare.

“Hm. Yes. And you are hoping to study architecture now, is that so, Dmitry Andreyevich?” she asked, raising a single eyebrow. Dmitry would have glared at Anastasia if he could have, but instead answered as neutrally as possible.

“Perhaps, Your Imperial Majesty. Who knows what the future holds?” He could tell at once that this was the wrong answer by the way her eyes narrowed slightly, so he hastily amended, even switching to his rough French. “But I found some books on the subject. They are very… eh… very interesting,” he stammered out. This seemed to please her, or confirm something. She spoke to him in French, slowly and clearly.

“It is good to hear you have ambitions. I wish you luck with them.” She moved on, dignified and tall, but Anastasia stayed behind.

“You did so good, Dima!” she half-whispered with a smile. He couldn’t help it - he grinned back, delighted with himself.

“I did, didn’t I?” he said, smirking slightly. 

“Don’t get too full of yourself,” she warned, reaching up to smooth down where his hair had escaped its pomade and was sticking up. As she did so, the Dowager Empress’s voice suddenly echoed back to them, full of regal ice.

“That man is an imposter. How dare you bring him in my presence?” 

Half the room went suddenly still. Marie shuffled quickly away from the quiet corner in which she and Gleb had been conversing, heads bent a little closer together than was proper for a guard and a grand duchess. Anastasia let out an involuntary gasp, and Dmitry’s face went pale, when they saw who the Dowager’s anger was directed at.

Vlad stood before her, ashen-faced, as Lily clutched his arm.

“No, that can’t be. Vlad, tell her!” she demanded. Vlad turned to her, resigned.

“Forgive me, my darling. Your acquaintance has been the most wonderful time of my life.” He kissed her hand, then pushed his way through the parting crowds to exit. He stopped briefly in front of Anya and Dmitry, and smiled very slightly.

“Don’t worry about me, dear children. I’ve survived worse.” With a wink, he was gone. Dmitry tried to rush after him but was caught only a few steps from the door by none other than the ball’s honoree herself.

“You can’t. Dmitry, you can’t! You’ll be ruined!” Tatiana hissed at him, moving her face as little as possible to avoid drawing attention.

“I don’t care. I’m a fake too. I don’t belong here any more than he does.” Dmitry tried to move past her, but she stopped him with a gloved hand.

“Yes. You do. You have a chance at so many things. Do you really think he wants you to ruin your future just to have this momentary satisfaction?”

“Why do you even care?” he bit back, suddenly understanding Gleb’s anger at these rich and powerful people who told others to abandon their friends like it was _nothing_ because it was more _beneficial_. He regretted his outburst almost immediately, seeing a flash of pain in her calm eyes.

“I’m sorry… Tanya, I know… you’ve always been so kind to me. I didn’t mean-” She waved him off.

“I know you didn’t. It’s alright. But you asked, and I will answer. Why do I care? Two reasons. One is that I think you deserve a wonderful future. The second is that I love my sister very much.” She walked away before he could register her words. 

“And she was quite right, my boy,” Vlad told him when he next saw him, selling goods at the same place on the quay. 

“But I didn’t want you to think everyone was against you. You’re more… you’re worth more than any of them,” Dmitry fumed.

“I’m touched, Dmitry. I am. But I’m afraid you’re wrong. Count Vladimir Popov was the greatest fake of them all, and nothing more. But you, dear boy, you can have a future. And when you’ve climbed to lofty heights, you’ll remember your old pal Vlad, eh?” he teased, finally earning a smile out of the surly teenager at his side. “But until then, I’m counting on you to keep certain of our… goods coming. It’ll be a bit more risky-”

“Risky, but not more than usual,” Dmitry retorted with a confident grin. “I know my stuff. Just you watch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like a broken record, but I'm so sorry I'm such a sporadic updater! Thank you for your patience and I'm really glad to hear that people are still enjoying this story :) Thanks as always to the #thirstsquad for distracting me when I should be writing!


	6. i always dreamed...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anya has a request for Dmitry. Meanwhile, in the streets, discontent is growing.

_St. Petersburg - June 1914_

The first time Dmitry kissed Anya, it was because she asked him to. 

“Dima,” she said one day as they walked along the Neva, “have you ever kissed anyone?”

Dmitry almost choked at the question, turning red and glancing sidelong at his friend, who determinedly kept her eyes on the path ahead. The answer to her question, of course, was _yes_. He might have only been fifteen, but Dmitry was already gaining a reputation among the girls of St. Petersburg as a bit of a flirt, and one handsome and decent-hearted enough that none of them much minded (or minded at all). Though still a bit on the lanky side, and still struggling with the overlong hair that came from irregular chances at the luxuries of precise grooming, Dmitry had grown tall and tanned, with the softness of childhood leaving his face in exchange for more chiseled features. 

And he knew all of this. He _definitely_ knew, through a combination of a long-developed sense to find his advantages and that annoying instinct handsome boys seemed to have regarding their own good looks. He had kissed his fair share of pretty girls, and even a little more than that (though not _everything_ , he was only fifteen, after all). 

But looking at Anastasia’s face, he couldn’t bring himself to say more than a simple “ _oui_ ,” hoping the switch to French would also help change the topic to one he could more easily discuss in a language not his own.

“Oh.” Anastasia walked on for a few more moments, Dmitry following. His schoolbag hung at his side, heavy with the large books within, bumping against his hip at every moment. “All my sisters have too. Olga said she kissed a naval officer when she was fifteen, but Frederick doesn’t know that. And Tanya… Prince Alexander is so much _older_ , Dmitry, but she says he’s wonderful. And Marie, well, our parents would kill her if they knew who _she’s_ been kissing!” A giggle burst through Anastasia’s serious train of thought until Dmitry cleared his throat and brought her back to herself.

“I always dreamed my first kiss would be on a bridge, in Paris, with a handsome prince. But I suppose two out of three would be alright.” She spoke thoughtfully at first, returning to Russian and levelling her imperial gaze on Dmitry until he realized what she meant.

“Anastasia, you don’t mean…”

“I mean precisely what I say,” she replied, refusing to let him off the hook without a proper reply. 

“ _Anya_ ,” he groaned, turning to face her on the bank. He set down his bag, feeling its weight all of a sudden. “I’m not your prince. I’m not even close.”

Anastasia took a step to close the distance between them.

“In case you’ve forgotten, I am a Grand Duchess, daughter of the Tsar of all Russia, and as such, I would beg to disagree, Dima.” She grabbed his bag from where it was sitting, tossed it on the ground in front of him, and stood on it, still not bringing herself to his height but at least a little bit closer. Her face fell slightly, even as her hands on her hips meant business.

“Please, Dima? Mama says I’ll be a woman before I know it, with suitors all around, and I know they press their suit sometimes, and I don’t want my first kiss to be… You’re my best friend. I trust you.”

Dmitry looked at his friend, her earnest eyes, her familiar (and, he had to admit, beginning to be lovely) face, and something in him knew he wouldn’t say no. He glanced around behind them to be sure no one had followed them - they could never be too careful.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered gently, and to his surprise, she obeyed without question. He briefly questioned where to place his hands, before settling one on her waist and the other lightly steadying her cheek. Before his mind could run away with thoughts about _who he was kissing_ or observe the pretty flush in her cheeks, he hastily dipped his head, closing his own eyes and pressing his lips to hers. 

The kiss was chaste but warm. Anya felt a sudden warmth rise in her chest and, out of some instinct she couldn’t quite understand, gently placed one hand on his chest and lifted the other to his hair. But before she could explore any further, Dmitry pulled away, not meeting her eyes for a moment. When he lifted them to hers again, though, he wore his trademark smirk. 

“Happy now, Princess?” he teased, sliding into the casual demeanor he wore so very well. Anya refused to let him think he’d had any sort of effect on her, so she nodded briskly.

“I am. Thank you.” And they continued on their walk, both too stubborn to ask the questions they wanted to ask.

****  
The kiss was still on Dmitry’s mind a few days later as he trekked down to the quay to join Vlad for a bit of black market dealing. He tried to push the memory to one side, but fragments kept popping up at the most irritating moments, reminding him of the look in her eyes or the precise color and texture of her hair or how it felt to have her gentle hands in _his_ hair.

This would simply not do.

As he walked through a particularly rough part of the city, he heard sounds that were becoming more and more common these days: the shouts of radicals, attempting to stir up the poor into armed violence against the bourgeois and aristocrats. From what Dmitry knew, these "Bolsheviks," as they'd come to be called, were mostly young, angry workers who supported their party by robbery and any other means necessary. A few had tried to radicalize the army, but had only managed to convert a handful of foot soldiers and get themselves imprisoned or executed for their troubles. They worried him, but they didn’t frighten him (yet).

With a sigh, Dmitry almost decided to walk away and not even bother investigating. But something made him turn around and follow the source of the sound, and when he arrived, horror seared through his veins.

There was a crowd of about two dozen gathered, with a quartet of men holding their prisoner. And that prisoner was a man Dmitry recognized all too well - slightly thinner and less perfectly groomed, but unmistakably Vladimir Popov.

“Vladimir Popov, you stand here accused and judged guilty -” began one of the fierce young men holding him by the shoulder.

“This isn’t even a trial!” Vlad shouted, to no avail.

“This is the only court that is free of of corruption. The court of the people,” the young man replied, jerking Vlad’s arm back with a vicious twist before continuing. “Comrade Popov, you are a fraud and a traitor. You thought yourself too good for us _common_ folk, eh? Placed yourself above us, and the aristocrats spit you right back out, just as you deserved. If you think you belong with the aristocrats, well, we are not inclined to disagree. Comrades.” He nodded a cue, and the other three men let go of Vlad in order to draw their guns and line up in front of him. His face went white.

“You may join your beloved dukes and counts and royals for a nice drink of vodka in hell, and die a traitor’s death on your way there. On my word, comrades.” He drew his own gun and stepped back. Vlad’s eyes darted around, but there was nowhere to run.

“Father!” The cry startled the makeshift firing squad, and the crowd parted as Dmitry, hat half pulled over his face and dirt hastily smudged on his cheeks to make himself look younger, pushed his way to Vlad. He locked eyes with the older man, trying to warn him to go along with it, and whether out of confusion or understanding, Vlad did.

“Son… you have to go, this is no place for you, go, go!” Vlad half-whispered, just loud enough to be overheard. Then, lower, for Dmitry alone: “Get out, my boy, just go.” Dmitry shook his head. 

“Who are you?” the leader asked Dmitry angrily. 

“He’s my father, sir, please, he hasn’t done nothing, please,” Dmitry begged, slipping on a rougher accent and forcing his voice to crack on a couple of words.

“I didn’t know he had a son,” commented one of the other would-be executioners. 

“My mother, sir, she was an actress. French. Please, he’s all I’ve got in the world,” Dmitry pleaded. He pulled a protective arm around Vlad and looked up mournfully. “I saw her die, I saw her get sick and fade and die right in front of me. I can’t do that again. If you’re going to kill him… you’re going to have to kill me too!” he shouted, loud enough for the crowd to hear.

The gathered people began murmuring. They’d come for the punishment of a traitor to the proleteriat, not the murder of a young boy trying to protect his father. The rebels seemed to sense this, and the leader bent down to speak to Dmitry.

“Big words. How old are you, boy?” he demanded. Dmitry’s mind raced, trying to calculate how low he could go without being caught in an obvious lie. 

“Thirteen.” At this, the crowd got even more restless. Killing a man in front of his young son, not even a man yet, was more than they could stomach, and a few began to drift towards where Vlad and Dmitry huddled.

The leader of the young Bolshevik gang realized his defeat. Even he wasn’t sure he could handle the blood of a child on his hands. He gestured sharply, and his comrades retreated.

“Be grateful for your son, _comrade_ , and hope he never realizes what sort of man you are,” he snapped at Vlad, spitting at him as he left. The crowd dispersed quickly. A few people sneered as they passed. One woman discreetly handed Dmitry a handkerchief, presumably for the cuts on Vlad’s face. Once they were alone, Vlad finally got to his feet, wincing and leaning heavily on Dmitry.

“That was very brave of you, my boy,” he said gravely. Dmitry shrugged.

“Eh. A rash act of kindness. Completely out of character. Don’t know what I was thinking,” he replied casually. Vlad looked long and hard at him, then pulled him into a tight hug.

“I cannot express… I am so grateful… I…” Vlad trailed off, attempting to hide the tears that escaped his unwilling eyes. Dmitry handed him the handkerchief and looked away, attempting to keep both of their emotions under control.

After a few moments, Vlad was ready to walk again, and the pair set out to his flat, thoughts of selling that day completely abandoned.

“Those men… Bolsheviks?” Dmitry asked. Vlad nodded, grave again.

“They’re angry about the slow pace of reforms. And the rumors that the tensions with Austria could lead to war any day. And they’re growing in daring. If they are willing to attempt violence in public, even in the worst parts of the city… we had all better beware.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're really starting to get into the juicy part of history and this story! World War I is on the horizon. Thanks as always to everyone who comments. This chapter is for the thirstsquad especially ;)


	7. nothing but his orders to fulfill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War comes to Europe, and love is not what war is for.

_The Winter Palace - St. Petersburg - 1915_

War had come to Russia.

Around the tsar’s table, conversation was more muted than usual. Worry about Tatiana, now the crown princess of Serbia, permeated every word. And Olga, though still only half-convinced to wed a prince four years younger than herself (even though it would mean being a queen one day), had been persuaded to depart to neutral Denmark to stay as a guest of her fiancè’s family, away from the fighting. Even the irrepressible joy of Maria and Anastasia was dulled, as the girls were certainly old enough to understand the possibilities of the future.

Fewer scholarship students were coming to family dinners these days; many were beginning to age out and find jobs far from St. Petersburg, while others had never developed a very close relationship to the family, for one reason or another. Less than half a dozen remained as regular guests. And on this particular night, only two sat at the table: Sonya Tarasova, a girl of about fifteen, and Dmitry, who sat at his customary place just below Anastasia’s as the tsarina and Maria discussed plans to train as nurses, much to the tsar’s chagrin.

“You are too young, Marie. War is not for your eyes,” he said severely. Maria scowled. 

“There are other girls my age who have seen worse. Besides, we all must make sacrifices, isn’t that what you said, Papa?” Nicholas set down his fork.

“Indeed we must. We, for instance, will have to do without much of our staff. Many of the servants and guards are departing for the wars.” He spotted one of the guards in the far corner of the room and called out to him.

“Ah, Vaganov, you’re leaving next week, aren’t you?” Gleb inclined his head. 

“Yes, sir.”

Dmitry felt a kick to his foot beneath the table and looked up to find Anya catching his gaze before her eyes flicked to Maria. Her sister’s face had gone pale and still, not looking up from her plate, but frozen as if utterly unable to move. Under her breath, Anya whispered to him.

“I’ll talk to her. You get him.” Dmitry suppressed a groan, not exactly relishing the thought of a heart-to-heart with St. Petersburg’s broodiest almost-revolutionary. 

But, true to his word, after the dinner, he slipped away into the shadows to follow Gleb down a corridor until the older boy, irritated, turned around to face him.

“Out with it, Petrov. I have work to do,” he said shortly. Dmitry bristled, suddenly defensive.

“So when were you planning to tell Marie that you're leaving?” 

Gleb couldn't help a short laugh that escaped him.

“You get right to the point, don't you?” The smile slid off his face. “I don't know,” he admitted. 

“I'm surprised you're going at all. After all the things you've said, why would you put your life on the line in the tsar’s army?” Dmitry asked, genuinely curious. Gleb’s face darkened.

“I do not fight for him. Not for any of them. But for Russia, what choice do I have but simple duty? We cannot change Russia if there is no Russia left,” he said slowly. “I couldn't tell her, because… I couldn't do that to her. I don't want her to worry about me… not that I think she would, but-”

“She would, and you know it.” Dmitry interrupted. “We all will,” he added. “Or, at least until I join you, I guess.” Gleb scowled.

“Don't say that, comrade. If the war is still going on when you are old enough to fight, then we will have failed. You don't strike me as a soldier, anyway,” he half-joked.

Dmitry struggled to explain himself.

“I'm not. But how ungrateful would I be, after all the tsar has done for me, to not serve?” He paused, debating whether to share his second thought before realizing Gleb was one person who might actually understand. “But then I think… what would my father say? He died believing no one should have the right to command anyone else… how can I dishonor him in that way?”

The ferocity evaporated from Gleb, all at once. 

“Let's hope that we beat back those damn Germans before you have to choose, eh?” He slapped Dmitry on the shoulder. “Come on. I'd better go apologize to Marie, or her sister will never leave me alone, will she?”

_Vitebsky Station - St. Petersburg_

It was a warm summer morning when Anya and Marie slipped out of a servants’ entrance at dawn, scarves covering their hair in an attempt to remain incognito. As they rounded the corner, Dmitry unfolded his long limbs from where he had been leaning against a brick wall and fell into step beside them.

They walked in silence until they reached the train station. Approaching the platform, they pushed their way through the crowds, soldiers in brown uniforms mixing with their loved ones. It only took a moment to locate one particular soldier, tall and dark and standing alone, his face half hidden by shadows. Anya and Dmitry hung back as Maria swiftly wove her way to him, watching as his handsome face transformed at the sight of her. He pulled his hat off and took the hand she proffered him. 

“When I return, I expect you'll be promised to a grand Duke or prince of some sort. Remember me kindly, won't you?” he asked gruffly, not meeting her eyes. Marie placed a hand on his cheek.

“When you return, I will be waiting.” Gleb leaned into her hand before pulling away with a groan.”

“Masha, you shouldn't have come, what point is there? And it's not safe for you to be out here. What if someone recognizes you?”

“I am well protected.” She grinned, and he followed her gaze to see Anya and Dmitry, who approached upon meeting his gaze.

“Goodbye, Gleb.” Anya offered her hand to him. After a moment, he took her hand, and instead of shaking it, he bowed over it and brushed his lips to it in a courtly respect.

“Goodbye… Nastya. Be well.” She stepped back to put her arms around Marie as Dmitry faced Gleb.

“You didn't have to come,” Gleb said quietly.

“Of course I did. Anya wasn't going to leave Marie to do this alone, and -”

“And you don't leave her side.” Gleb laughed, then offered his hand to shake. He held on for a second too long, pulling Dmitry close enough to whisper without the girls hearing.

“Look out for her, won’t you? I know you keep an eye out for Anastasia-”

“Not that she needs it,” Dmitry added with a small grin. 

“No. Not that either of them need it. But the future isn’t… I don’t know what’s going to happen, Dmitry. Nothing may happen. Or things may happen that no one can control. And if I’m not here, I just want to make sure that…”

“She’ll be fine, Gleb. I promise. I’ll look out for her as well as you could.” Dmitry promised.

“Look out for her as well as you do for Nastya, and I will be content.”

Dmitry nodded, and Gleb released his hand.

“Long life… comrade.” He grinned, a rare gesture of relationship friendship. Dmitry and Anya took a few steps away to allow Gleb and Marie one last farewell, his hands in her golden hair as she tipped her face up to his. No one recognized the princess kissing a soldier goodbye, and perhaps that was for the best. Gleb offered one last real smile to the princess who held more of his heart than he cared to admit. He made the smallest of bows before disappearing into the steam and crowd. Anya took Maria’s arm and held on tight, looking to all the world like just another set of young women wondering if this was the last time they'd see a loved one.

They stood in silence, watching the train pull away, and with it, the last vestiges of a normal life. Dmitry felt a weight on his shoulder and looked down to see Anya’s head resting there, looking straight ahead as she held her sister’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long month, but it's also been a great one because I got to see Anastasia again, and with a different Dmitry too! Thank you all who have so kindly been commenting and patiently waiting for my updates - I hope you enjoy, and I appreciate your support so much <3


	8. remove him from my sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dmitry's side business catches up with him.

_St. Petersburg - Late summer, 1917_

The war continued, and with it came more strife within Russia itself than they ever could have dreamed. Few had imagined that the death of a single man could draw half the world into deadly conflict. And although the reformed Russia was more prepared than she might have been under other circumstances, there were still losses.

Much to Maria’s relief, those losses did not yet include one Gleb Vaganov. Quite on the contrary, he had proven his bravery at the Masurian Lakes, resulting in a promotion that put him slightly more out of harm’s way, though not high enough to return to St. Petersburg just yet. Despite his protestations, he wrote faithfully to Maria as often as possible, with Dmitry as the go-between to avoid drawing attention.

Even far from the front, tensions were higher than before. The tsarina had become inconsolable following the murder of her favorite holy man, taking the crime as a personal affront and banishing the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich permanently. The duke’s banishment was met with relief by Anastasia at the least, relieved that he was removed as a potential suitor. 

(Dmitry gloated about the duke's fall too, but told no one).

One morning, Anya passed by a calm-faced young man in the corridors of the palace who barely bowed to her, a slight frown creasing his face.

“Papa,” she asked at dinner, “who was that man in your office today? The one who looked so stern.” Nicholas sighed, a hint of strain in his voice.

“That, Nastya, was Alexander Kerensky. He is the Minister of War.”

“Kerensky? Isn't he one of those socialists?” Maria interjected. When the others turned to her in surprise, she flushed slightly. “So I've read, at least,” she added hastily, avoiding her sister’s knowing gaze.

“Nicky, what are you doing, allowing one of them into your counsel?” Alexandra demanded. He shook his head.

“It is the time we live in, my dearest. The soldiers adore him. He inspired that great offensive against Austria in May. He is not a man we can afford to alienate. Not with-” He stopped short, unwilling to share with his family his concerns over the growing radical voices. Their victories in the war were just enough to keep the majority believing that the government was, at least for the most part, going in the right direction, but a minority was growing. Tales from the countryside were starting to filter in of small but well-armed mobs attacking and looting the estates of counts and barons, furious over the continuing gap between promises of more equality and the slow-moving reality.

Instead, he smiled tightly, patting his wife’s hand.

“We have survived worse, Sunny,” he assured her, hoping that the use of her old nickname might bring a smile to her worried face. “The Germans will be beaten back, by the grace of God, and then we shall turn to improving matters. These… socialists will retreat, once they see the successes wrought by our modern empire.” 

For the Romanovs, business was anything but business as usual. But for Dmitry, business was booming. The war meant more and more scarcity, which meant an increased demand for forged documents and luxury items that could not be obtained by any other means. His apprenticeship, under the distant supervision of the great Leon Benois, barely paid enough for his poor lodgings and the barest minimum of food - to have a life beyond simple survival, apprentices had to look elsewhere, and luckily for Dmitry, he was long practiced in such work.

“A ribbon from the palace, _madame_ ,” he called out to a pair of women lingering near his table. “Belonged to one of their Imperial Highnesses themselves!” He picked up the bit of fine material in question, holding out for them to see and turning on his most charming smile.

“And how would a gutter rat come by such a treasure, hm?” one asked. She turned to her friend. “This is how all of them are. ‘A ruble for this painting - royal commission, I swear!’ ‘It could be worth a fortune - so what will someone pay?’ Always fake.” She clucked her tongue and began to move away, but Dmitry put a hand on her arm to stop her.

“See the closeness of the weave, the sheen of the material, the brightness of the dye. Think about it, _madame_ , who else would have access to such things in times like these?” he asked, smiling innocently up at them. The first woman reached back over and ran her finger along it, then pulled back, apparently satisfied.

“Done.”

She paid Dmitry and departed. Dmitry turned around to tuck the money in his little pouch, turning his back on the crowded market for just a moment. When he turned back around, his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.

A few feet away, lightly veiled but unmistakable to him, stood Anya, staring straight at him. For a split second, he grinned at her automatically, hoping against hope that she hadn’t heard his transaction, but the expression on his face told her that hope was long gone.

She approached Dmitry as he shifted on his feet, suddenly uncomfortable in a place he’d always felt most comfortable of all.

“Please tell me I didn’t hear that right,” she said without preamble. 

He said nothing. 

“Then tell me you were lying, pulling one of your little cons to make an extra few kopeks.”

He still said nothing.

“How long?”

“How long what?” he asked, stalling. Anya glared at him.

“How long have you been stealing, using my family to your advantage? _How long_ , Dmitry?” she demanded, her voice getting louder and angrier with each word. “Months? _Years?_ ” Anya shook her head. “How could you? After everything?”

That was too much for Dmitry, who felt his temper slipping away from him.

“After everything? Honestly? Do you _realize_ how you sound?” he snapped.

“Like someone who has just discovered the depths of someone else’s ingratitude!” 

“Ingratitude? _Ingratitude?_ ” Dmitry sputtered. 

“Yes! My family gave you a chance - gave you every opportunity! And this is how you repay them? With thefts and cons just to benefit yourself? How selfish can you be?” Anya yelled back, heedless of who might overhear them.

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from someone who’s had the luxury of selfishness all her life!” Dmitry had the brief satisfaction of seeing hurt flash across her face, and he drove his point forward. “You don’t get it, do you? You don’t understand what it’s like to rely on someone else’s goodwill, to always have to be perfect or risk losing _everything_.”

“You’re changing the subject because you know what you’ve been doing is wrong!” she shouted back. This time, it was her turn to feel satisfied in the quick change of expression that told her she had landed a hit. 

“And so what if I do, hm? I am _poor_. I have always been poor. And I am not ashamed that I have done what I had to so that I could survive on more than the scraps thrown my way by aristocrats when they feel like it.”

“You sound like Gleb,” she said softly.

“Maybe he’s right. Tell me, if you hadn't found me today, would you ever have noticed things missing? I didn't think so. I have done nothing but take what I can to make my way. And I will not be made to be ashamed of that.” Dmitry’s voice lowered too, cold and uncompromising in its quiet fury.

“Even if it wasn’t yours to take.”

“And whose fault is that? Not mine, _Anastasia_. Not mine.” 

Anya looked at him for a moment, searching for a trace of her friend in the proud, angry man in front of her. Seeing nothing, she retreated.

“You’re a thief and a liar and I’m sorry that we ever met!” she yelled.

“Anya?” Vlad came around the corner just in time to see her storm off in a rush of red hair. He looked after her, then back at Dmitry, still scowling and gripping the table.

“Dmitry! What on earth is going on here?” he exclaimed. “What has made our Anya so angry? Have you quarreled?”

“ _Our_ Anya, ha!” Dmitry snapped. “I’ll tell you what’s happened. _Anya_ doesn’t understand a thing and doesn’t care to. Just like royalty. And she comes in here and yells at me and just… She’s so… she makes me so…” He sputtered, losing his words in his anger. 

To his utter shock, Vlad laughed, reaching down to pet a stray cat that had wandered across the path.

“Would you look at that? An unspoken attraction,” he said gleefully. “But, Dmitry, be careful, you mustn’t-”

“ _Attraction?_ ” Dmitry choked out, stumbling over the word in his fury. “Attraction? To that… entitled, skinny little brat? Have you lost your mind?”

Vlad paled as he looked at something over Dmitry’s shoulder. Following his gaze, Dmitry turned around to see Anya standing there, looking very small. 

“I left my hat,” she said simply. She reached over and picked it up from the table. 

“Anya, I-” Dmitry began to speak, but she cut him off.

“I would have just left it here, but I’m rather fond of it and wouldn’t want it auctioned off to the highest bidder,” she said coldly. She put the hat back on. “Good day.”

As she stalked away, Dmitry scowled and turned his back, muttering under his breath. Vlad looked between the two and shook his head ruefully.

“Oh, my dear boy, what a mess you have made.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a lot longer to write than I expected, sorry about that! I've had some new thoughts about the characters too, so those have worked their way in. Thanks to the squad for encouraging all the bad behavior and for appreciating my jokes ;)


	9. i never should have let them dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anastasia comes of age in the grandest way possible.

_The Winter Palace - St. Petersburg - May 1918_

Dmitry sat at the table, eyes on his plate as the conversation flowed around him. It was a slightly larger party than usual, including Kerensky and his wife, as well as a couple of visiting aristocrats and government officials - a mixed bag if ever there was one. Although the wine and conversation were flowing, Dmitry sat quietly, half his mind on the sketches he had to complete and half his mind trying to decide whether he was still angry at the girl who sat two seats down from him. 

It had been nearly a year since the day Anya had stormed away from his market stall, and although she was cordial (and had never told another soul what she had seen), things hadn’t been the same since. Where there had once been casual banter and natural ease, there now was careful politeness - almost worse than if she’d stopped speaking to him altogether.

Despite this, he still was a presence at the palace as much as ever, and the rest of the family treated him exactly as they always had. If anything, Alexei at least was growing closer than ever to him - at nearly fourteen, the frail boy was growing into a restless young man, and he looked up to Dmitry, drawn to the older boy’s independent spirit and sardonic attitude. It was Alexei now who was trying to draw Dmitry out of his brooding thoughts and into some sort of conversation.

His efforts were stopped short, as were all conversations in the room, however, by the arrival of a messenger in military uniform who strode directly up to the tsar, bowed crisply, and handed him a piece of paper, leaning down as he did so to whisper in Nicholas’s ear.

The conversations around the table trailed off as all eyes went to the tsar, whose face had changed as he read the brief message. After a moment, he looked up to meet Alexandra’s gaze, nodded slightly, then stood up.

“I have just received a telegram confirming news I have been awaiting for some time now. I did not wish to get anyone’s hopes up until it was certain. At thirteen hundred hours tomorrow afternoon, there will be peace in Europe. Germany will withdraw. My dear friends… we have won.”

Silence reigned for a moment. No one moved.

Then Alexei let out a loud whoop, and the spell broke. The tsar reached down and pulled his wife up into his embrace. Along the walls, the guards broke protocol and shook hands gleefully with each other and with the dignitaries who approached to clap them on the shoulders, formalities forgotten in the rush of relief that filled the room. Maria managed to slip between two ministers to get to where Gleb lingered. Unable to embrace, he simply took her hands in his for a long moment. 

Alexei had launched himself into Anastasia’s arms, and the two had now begun to dance around the room in glee. As they whirled around, Alexei nearly spun his sister right into Dmitry. Automatically, Dmitry reached out to steady her, and as he did so, their eyes met. He paused for a moment before offering up a smile. And for the briefest of moments, she smiled back at him - a real smile, _Anya’s_ smile - before it faded and she turned her attention back to her family. 

Dmitry stood back for a moment, watching the joy, before quietly slipping away. He would go and find Vlad, perhaps - this was the kind of news that should be celebrated with family, after all. As he made to exit, though, one of the aristocrats quietly addressed him passing by.

“Are you leaving so soon, young Petrov? You should stay, celebrate this happy occasion.” Dmitry looked back, taken aback, to see Count Ipolitov’s serious, calm face. He reached for his still-rough (though slightly improved) French - the count had been kind to him over the years, and was in fact still putting a little patronage towards his architecture training - and he wanted to at least attempt to speak to him on the same level.

“I’m not needed for their celebrations. I should go,” he said. Ipolitov studied him for a moment.

“Not needed, perhaps, but I wager you would be wanted,” he replied at last. Dmitry smiled slightly even as he shook his head.

“You’re always kind to me. Kinder than I deserve,” he added in a mutter. If Ipolitov heard his last sentence, he didn’t show it. Instead, he simply offered his hand.

“I won’t insist, as I know it would do no good. But I will offer this advice, if you’ll allow it. Be happy, my dear boy. This is good news. We have lost so much. We have all lost…” He trailed off for a moment, and Dmitry felt a pang of guilt. Ipolitov’s only son and heir, Fyodor, had been killed in battle earlier in the year, and though he did not speak of the loss often, Dmitry could imagine it was never far from mind, especially tonight.

“We have all lost so much, but now with something good… Well, in my experience, good tends to follow good.” 

_The Winter Palace - July 1918_

With the war over, the tsar's concern shifted to matters closer to home. Although he met with his ministers, however, his mind seemed to be elsewhere. And those ministers found out exactly what was on his mind: displaying Romanov glamour for a new age.

“I’m not certain that would be wise, Your Majesty,” said the bravest of the officials, glancing nervously at his fellows for support. “The unrest among the workers continues to grow. An opulent display might… strike the wrong tone, at this moment.”

“While I appreciate your concern, sir, that is utter nonsense!” The tsar beamed. “The war is over. The unrest will soon burn itself out. And a beautiful celebration is just what is needed to remind everyone why we are still here. Not just to lead, but to inspire, to provide an escape from everyday life when they see us.”

There would be no convincing him otherwise. There was to be a grand ball to celebrate Anastasia’s seventeenth birthday and her coming-out into society - a masquerade, at her request. On the evening in question, the grandest ballroom in the palace was filled with the cream of St. Petersburg society in a whirling mass of masks and silks and glittering jewels. Some wore the most delicate of masks, barely obscuring their identities - Anya laughed at those people for being so boring, turning over her shoulder to crack a joke with Dmitry before remembering that he wasn’t there. Most, however, wore more opaque disguises, reveling in the chance for a little anonymity and a little lightness after the drab economy of war years.

Despite her parents’ protests (and her Nana’s written words of mild disapproval), Anya delighted in the freedom that the masquerade provided. It was a relief to blend in for once, not worrying about everyone censoring themselves around her. And she was, after all, just a girl, reveling in the beauty of the night and the joy of being a grown-up at last.

Which is why, when a tall man in an unadorned black mask approached her and asked, in the most exquisite French, for the next dance, she grinned widely, set down the glass of champagne she had just begun to sip, and gave him her hand without a thought. His hand hesitated a moment before settling on her waist, but a moment later, they were off, whirling across the floor.

For a moment, Anya’s mind wandered as she caught sight of the windows lining the ballroom. Outside those walls, she knew, were thousands of people who were much less interested in what the Grand Duchesses were wearing to the ball than they were in ensuring there would be no more balls. A small voice in the back of her mind wondered what she had done to deserve all of this while, out on the streets, girls her age and younger were working in hospitals, washing dishes, and sweeping the pavement to survive. Suddenly, the grandeur settled in the pit of her stomach and became decidedly less pleasant. Something of her turn of mind must have shown even beneath her mask, because her partner spoke for the first time since they had begun dancing.

“You seem lost in thought. Am I not a sufficiently interesting partner?” he asked, stumbling over his words midway through but finishing with a small smile. Anastasia shook her head, tried to brush off the melancholy.

“I’m so sorry, I just-” 

Before she could finish, her partner leaned down closer to her ear to speak without being overheard, switching into Russian.

“I’d have thought you’d be enjoying yourself more… _Anya_ ,” whispered a familiar voice. Anya couldn’t help letting out a tiny gasp as her partner drew back and her favorite smile in the world grinned back at her.

“ _Dima!_ What are you doing here?”

******

Dmitry was not the dancing kind of man - something that had become more apparent than ever when Marie and Alexei had approached him with their plan. At first, he brushed it off.

“Anya wouldn’t want me there, anyway.” Marie rolled her eyes.

“The two of you, I swear. I’m going to start a running tally,” she muttered. Alexei, oblivious to his sister’s implications, shook his head eagerly.

“No, you must come! It will be an awfully wonderful surprise for her. Please, Dmitry?” Dmitry could hardly refuse, and instead resorted to another excuse.

“I can’t dance,” he admitted, shuffling his feet.

“Well, that’s not a real problem! We can teach you, can’t we, Mashka?” Alexei twinkled up at Marie, who sighed and nodded.

After a few attempts, she stood back.

“Huh. You weren’t kidding. You _really_ can’t dance,” she remarked after another attempt had ended with a stooped Dmitry and his stuttering legs tangled up over his own feet. Alexei shook his head.

“He can’t learn from a _girl_ , Marie. Here, Dmitry, stand next to me. Follow what I do _exactly_ ,” he commanded, steering Dmitry into position and narrating every movement. Marie hovered close, unable to break the years of protective habits, but she needn’t have worried - Dmitry kept enough of a distance to not bump Alexei with his clumsiness, and Alexei’s own grace had improved over the years until there was little fear of falling.

The other logistics took a little more cooperation, and others were brought into the plan. When the night of the ball arrived, no less than four people were helping pull it off. But when he entered the ballroom, thoughts of anyone else evaporated from Dmitry’s mind because, in an instant, he spotted _her_.

Masked she might be, but Dmitry could find her in any crowd. Her red hair, now threaded through with golden tones more than the vivid red of her childhood, was pulled back in an elegant chignon. Her mask was a dark blue, edged with sparkling trim. And she glittered from head to toe in a gown of dark blue that matched her mask, sparkling with a thousand details he knew would have taken hours upon hours to sew perfectly. She looked, to him, like a Petersburg night studded with stars - and for a moment, he thought about turning on his heel and leaving the ballroom. What use could the heavens have for a boy born in the mud? But then she looked his way - not _at_ him, but he could imagine, couldn’t he? - and he knew he couldn’t leave.

So he walked up to her, put on his best accent, pretended to be the sort of man who belonged at a celebration like this. But then he saw that flash of boredom - or was it sadness? - flash across her face, and he couldn’t stay anonymous.

“Dima! What are you doing here?” she whispered, grinning in delight. Anya would have thrown her arms around him if she could have, but settled for squeezing their clasped hands tighter, and he instinctively tightened his hand on her waist to draw her a little closer. 

“Surprised?” he asked. He could feel a broad grin working its way across his face, and for once, he didn’t fight it, letting that joy that had been so long tamped down work its way to the surface.

“You could say that! How did you manage it?” Anya asked, glancing around them as if expecting to see conspirators surrounding them. This only added to Dmitry’s good mood, and he laughed in delight.

“I had some help. Marie and Alexei started it. Gleb snuck me in. Alexei worked on my French. And the suit is courtesy of Vlad… and the Countess, I presume,” he added. As he spun Anya around, he looked around the edges of the room to see if any of his friends were watching. Sure enough, in one corner, he spotted Gleb and a masked blonde smirking their direction. Off to the side, a bearded man in a green mask beamed openly before suddenly scratching at his eyebrow, brushing at his shoulder, and scurrying off somewhere. 

“And… the dancing?” Anya asked, her voice oddly strained. 

“Marie tried, but it was mostly Alexei. Did he do well, d’you think?” Dmitry questioned, his own voice lower. Anya looked up at him as the music came to an end.

“Very well.” They parted hands reluctantly. Unwilling to let go just yet, Dmitry let his hand trail along her waist, tracing along the line of beading. Anya stifled a gasp at the touch of his broad, familiar yet unfamiliar hand; it took every ounce of her royal demeanor to remain nonchalant to those passing by.

“I wanted to say-” she started, but stopped, seeing her next partner already approaching. Dmitry followed her gaze and quickly turned back to her.

“The next waltz, then?” She nodded, understanding, and before the count or prince or whatever he was had even reached them, Dmitry had somehow vanished. She grinned at this, even as she began the gavotte with her new partner. _You can take the boy off the streets, but you can’t take the street rat out of the man._

Sure as he had promised, Dmitry appeared before her for the next waltz, bowing much more fluidly than he had all those years ago but with the same look in his eyes as he took her waist and hand. As they began to dance, he looked around nervously.

“They're all staring,” he whispered. Anya smiled up at him.

“No one knows who you are. They're all trying to figure out what handsome duke or foreign prince is this mysterious stranger,” she teased. But his face fell a little at that.

“But I'm not, am I?” he said with a small laugh at the ridiculousness of the thought. 

“I wanted to say earlier… I'm sorry, Dmitry. I was cruel, before,” she whispered. “I didn't even think…And I was stubborn and I should have talked to you before now.”

“Not as stubborn as me,” Dmitry admitted, a genuine, sheepish grin making its way onto his face. “You were right. I was stealing and it wasn't right. It was fair, but it wasn't right. And I shouldn't have said… that other thing.” 

“No, you shouldn't have. But I understand. So we are friends again?” Anya asked, only half joking. 

“Do I really need to answer?” He grinned down at her and was rewarded with her small hand squeezing his. He glanced over her shoulder to see the stares still surrounded them, and his face fell. Anya picked up on his mood immediately.

“What's wrong?” He tried to smile reassuringly.

“It's nothing. It just… I'm losing track of how many people I'm supposed to be. I'm the street orphan, I'm a black marketeer, I'm an apprentice, now apparently I'm suspected of being some foreign prince. It's hard to keep up.”

Anya's heart went out to him, flipping over as she looked up up into his eyes. Heedless of the people around them, she briefly touched her gloved hand to his cheek and felt the warmth as he instinctively leaned in to it.

“You're Dima, and I'm Anya. What else matters?”

 _A lot_ , he wanted to say, but he couldn't form the words. So instead he smiled and let himself believe, until the dance ended and Gleb would have to sneak him back out, that she was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the joys of the holidays - more time to write. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas, and thank you for following thus far!


	10. a new wind blows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anya returns from Paris to a Russia in turmoil.

_August 1919 - The Winter Palace_

Anya collapsed onto her bed, weary with travel but home at last. Her eighteenth birthday had come and gone in a Parisian whirlwind at her nana’s side. Paris was everything she had ever dreamed, a city beyond all compare - yes, even grander than her beloved St. Petersburg. Some part of her secretly thought she might like to live there someday, but that wasn’t anything she could say just yet. 

Having only just arrived home, she was given the luxury of not having to appear for supper; instead, Katya brought a meal up to her mistress before being dismissed to eat her own supper, with the promise of completing unpacking the next day. Just as Anya began to balance the tray on her knees, there was a tap at her window. She hurried over to peer out on her little balcony, only to break out into a smile at who was down below. Grinning up at her, hands in his pockets, stood Dmitry. He waved, gestured towards her window, and as soon as she nodded, he clambered nimbly up her favorite tree and landed lightly on her balcony.

“Hello, Your Highness,” he said with a good-natured smirk.

“Good evening, Mr. Petrov,” she replied serenely. They stood still for a moment, then he scooped her up in a hug. 

“Look at you, Anya. Perfectly _Parisienne_ ,” he pronounced. Anya shrugged, but he could tell how much the adjective pleased her. “Paris suits you, I think.”

“Oh, Dima, it does, it really does!” she agreed. “It’s so… so… cosmopolitan. Everything is _avant-garde_ or chic. And Nana and I went to Grandfather’s bridge, and I felt like he was there with us. It’s the most beautiful city. You must -” she stopped short, sheepish, but he waved it off.

“You’ve missed a lot here, too,” he said. Her face grew serious.

“Are things really as bad as they say? Nana wouldn’t let me read the papers too much but I made Katya sneak them up to me.”

Dmitry only nodded. In the countryside, a crop shortage was making its way across Russia, and Dmitry could only imagine the consequences ahead. But the Romanovs and their advisors were proving to be less concerned with managing a food emergency in the making than they were with finding ways to discredit a man who had - yet again - managed to escape Siberian exile and begin to build a base. The name “Lenin” was spoken in the kind of disgusted whispers reserved for those who were viewed with equal parts abhorrence and fear.

Anya sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. After an awkward moment, Dmitry joined her, perching as carefully as he could. 

“What's going to happen, Dima? I feel like I ought to be doing something but there's nothing I can do, is there?” Dmitry looked at her, understanding her frustration but without any answers.

“Stay safe. That is your job for now,” he said. “And speaking of being safe, I'd better go. I don't think your parents would take too kindly to finding a handsome scoundrel in their daughter's bedroom,” he added with a wink and a smirk. 

“I don't see - oh, you meant _you_ ,” Anya volleyed back. She grinned widely at the split second of surprise on his face - she had missed their banter so very much. With a mocking bow, Dmitry slipped back out her window, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

As the evening went on, though, Anya began to wish he hadn't gone. She had studied enough history books to know what happened when people got hungry and rulers overlooked it. Unable to sleep, she got out of bed and padded down the hall to Maria’s room - perhaps her sister would have some words of comfort or knowledge. 

But as she approached her sister's door, she stopped short. Maria's laugh emerged from under the door, stifled at the end as if trying to keep quiet. A moment later, Anya clapped her hand over her mouth - a second voice, shushing Maria, floated out to her ears. She scuttled back to her room, closed the door, and hopped into her bed, mind racing and cheeks flushed.

Anya was not naive, contrary to what her family might think. She supposed she shouldn't be quite so shocked that her sister had allowed Gleb into her room and her bed - lots of people secretly carried out outside the bounds of marriage these days. And, Anya conceded, Gleb had turned out to be awfully handsome: tall and strong and dark, with piercing eyes equally capable of intensity and kindness. He wasn't her type, to be sure, but she could see his appeal to Maria. 

That was not a good line of thought, though, as stray thoughts began to creep into her mind about what was going on in Maria's room and soon shifted to her own curiosity. Her hand drifted lower on her on body, towards something sinful yet inexorable. As her mind drifted too, a familiar pair of eyes came to mind. _That_ snapped her to attention with a surprised gasp, and she quickly rolled over, willing sleep to come to erase her stubborn subconscious.

_November 1919 - Taurida Palace - St. Petersburg_

The Duma was falling apart. 

Gleb read about it every day in the papers (which he duly smuggled to the insistent Maria and Anastasia when he was finished). Dmitry heard about it daily on the streets and even, on occasion, at Benois’s studio among his fellow apprentices. Alexandra refused to hear it, or let Alexei hear it (his sisters filled him in anyway). And Nicholas… Nicholas was a little too delighted at the idea.

Weary of the slow pace of reform, the Socialist Democrats and their fellow leftist parties had won over a third of the seats. But their progressive pushes were opposed by the aristocrats,who whispered to Nicholas that the Duma was trying to usurp his God-given rights. This, of course, was the one way to convince him of all his worst suspicions about socialists. 

Kerensky held together a rough coalition, led by his Trudovik faction, but it was losing support every day to the radicals who cared less about abolishing restrictions on Jews and supporting unions than they did about undermining the government to start from scratch. 

Some days, he couldn't say he blamed them. The tsar and tsarina, in the face of growing violence and financial crisis after crisis, retreated to their mysticism and dug in their heels,more convinced than ever that what Russia needed was less freedom, not more.

But did they deserve to die horrible deaths for it? Fighting cruelty with cruelty was no way to govern, he believed. Unfortunately, that viewpoint was rapidly losing support, especially from the young firebrands who would be vital if rebellion ever did come.

It was these thoughts on which he was wondering when he a soft cough caught his attention. He turned to see one of the young palace guards approach in his stiff, formal way. Kerensky recalled the young man as one who had stood silently in the back of many meeting rooms at the palaces over the years. 

“Vaganov, isn’t it?” he asked, hoping he’d gotten it right. Gleb nodded.

“Yes, sir. Gleb Vaganov. It’s an honor.” He bowed stiffly.

“Is it? I was under the impression you young men were flocking to the Bolsheviks and their promises,” Kerensky half-joked, unable to suppress the edge of bitterness.

“Not all of us believe violent revolution is desirable,” Gleb replied. Kerensky studied him for a moment. He recalled the boy now, a young soldier with a good reputation and yet, strangely enough, a close associate of the younger Romanovs. Kerensky decided to test that.

“I imagine it would be much harder for you, knowing the imperial family so well,” he casually remarked. Gleb was no fool - he understood the meaning perfectly.

“It is much harder to believe someone is pure evil when you know them to be a human being,” was his measured reply. Kerensky smiled at the reply - the sort of answer he himself might have made.

“Words like that and you might be a politician someday, son.” Gleb smiled quickly before Kerensky continued. “If there's still politics to be involved in.”

“Are things really that bad, sir?” Gleb’s curiosity overwhelmed him. Kerensky hesitated, years of caution whispering that he couldn’t trust this young man, but a certain instinct whispering that he could. That voice won out.

“No. They’re worse.” Kerensky sat heavily in a window and indicated that Gleb should join him. He lowered his voice.

“We shall never achieve a Marxist vision. Not in my lifetime, and I doubt in yours either,” he began bluntly. “Idealism is a luxury we no longer have. I myself have been the target of three assassination conspiracies in the past six months. Two from the Bolsheviks, who would prefer I be out of the way, and one from a certain faction of royalists.”

Gleb felt his breath catch in his throat.

“You don’t think the tsar -”

“I don’t believe so, no. But I don’t think he’d miss me much, either,” Kerensky added ruefully. “We cannot seem to convince the royalists that socialism will benefit us all, nor can we convince the radicals that Russia can be mended without being burned to the ground first. The Duma is a waste of time, in this state.”

“If the Duma is infighting… then who’s governing?” Gleb asked, realizing as he did so that he already knew the answer.

“No one.”

The two men sat in silence for a moment. An idea occurred to Gleb, and he opened his mouth to voice it before pushing it back down - it was not his place, after all. But Kerensky had already noticed.

“What is it? Come, come, you can speak freely,” he encouraged. Gleb frowned, then proceeded cautiously.

“Would it make any difference to have royalty on your side?” he asked. Kerensky sat back, puzzled.

“I… I don’t know. It could help… or it could hurt. The tsar is not precisely popular at the moment, so I can’t say for sure that-”

“I wasn’t talking about the tsar,” Gleb stated evenly. It took the minister a moment to process what he had just said, but his eyes widened as he understood. Gleb pressed on.

“The tsarevich and the grand duchesses, they’re not like their parents. They’re… compassionate. Forward-thinking. And they’re smart - they’ll want to preserve their future as much as we do, if not even more. They’re chafing under the tsar’s policies as much as we are - they want to help but can’t do more than wave and smile in parades.”

“And they don’t like that, I take it?” Kerensky asked. Gleb let out a snort.

“You could say that.” He paused, gauged the possibilities. “I think you should talk to them.”

****  
 _February 1920 - The Winter Palace_

And talk to them, he did.

It was a bitterly cold afternoon when Kerensky slipped quietly into a less-used wing of the palace and let Gleb escort him into an unused room where a quartet of young people stood. He recognized Maria, with her fair hair and gentle features, and Anastasia’s shrewd glance and unmistakable auburn hair. He vaguely recognized the tall young man standing almost protectively behind the royal family, though he couldn’t put a name to the face. But it was the tsarevich Alexei whom he did not expect.

The last time he had seen the heir to the throne, Alexei had been a thin, pale boy, perpetually attached to his mother’s side (by whose choice, Kerensky had never been certain). The boy in front of him now was still a little on the slim side, but healthier and tanner, with a strange wisdom in his eyes that Kerensky had only seen in those who had suffered greatly in the war. Even as he bowed deeply, his mind was racing, trying to assemble what a young prince could have encountered that had haunted his gaze at the age of fifteen.

“Thank you for meeting me, Your Imperial Highnesses,” he began formally. Anastasia spoke up.

“Thank you for wanting to listen to us, Minister. And I think we ought to dispense with formalities, don’t you agree? You may call us by our given names. This is, after all, not an official meeting.” A mischievous glint in her eye reminded Kerensky of the tales he had heard of the tsar’s “monkey” of a youngest daughter in her younger days. He suspected something of that merry spirit still resided in the calm woman before him.

“I am glad to hear that at least some members of the imperial court wish to be of service to the Russian people… begging your pardon,” Kerensky added quickly, unsure how freely he could speak. 

“It is we who should be asking for pardon, not you. We are not children. We could have spoken up and acted sooner,” said Maria. Gleb looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead settled for gripping the back of Maria’s chair a little more tightly.

“We give to charity, and we’ve been funnelling some of our own food and money to the outside, but it’s not enough,” Anastasia added.

“How much do you know about the situation at hand?” Kerensky asked. He needed to know if he was dealing with educated young people, or with well-intentioned but sheltered royalty. The group exchanged looks.

“We know… more than our parents think we know, but less than we should,” Anya admitted. “Gleb smuggles us literature. And Dmitry has taught me - taught us - other perspectives.”

 _Dmitry, that was it._ Kerensky’s gaze drifted to the young man who stood behind the grand duchess, his feet shuffling awkwardly and his hair a bit longer and messier than the men of court, but still that regular presence never far from Anastasia and her family.

“We aren’t foolish enough to think we can do everything. But we must be able to do _something_ ,” Maria piped up earnestly. 

“As I said, no matter the timing, it is good to see that there is an alternative in the imperial household,” Kerensky said. At that, Alexei pulled himself up and spoke for the first time.

“I am not sure what you mean by ‘alternative,’ Minister, so allow me to be frank. I am no Alexander. I am not an alternative to my father. I am his first and most devoted subject and his devoted son.” Kerensky was surprised at the poise and regality emanating from the boy who had seen so little of public life. A thought crossed his mind that this boy very well could be a very great tsar one day. He scrambled to clarify.

“I didn’t mean to imply… I only meant alternative points of view, sir,” he hastily amended. “But, I cannot help wondering. I mean no disrespect, but if you are, as you say, utterly devoted to your father… why do you cross him as you are in this moment? How do we know that you are not acting as his instrument here, not to help my cause, but to injure it further?”

There was a beat of silence as Alexei and the minister stared at one another. Alexei spoke first.

“It may surprise you to know that even an heir to the throne needs allies. I find the monarchists distasteful and overbearing. They distrust me because they still see me as the little boy at my mother’s knee. And I find the Bolsheviks and their kind to be the worst sort of men - men who don’t know what they want, only that they don’t like what they have.” 

Kerensky was again struck by the prince’s philosophical depths. 

“But if your father returns power to the monarchy… you do not need so many allies,” he pointed out. “Even if your beliefs align closer to mine, isn’t it in your interest to be a monarchist?”

Alexei sized him up, then made the first fully independent decision of his life.

“If I were an ordinary man, a strong man, perhaps it would be.”

“Alexei!” Maria cried out in horror, but he held up his hand and continued.

“But I am ill, sir. I am a haemophiliac.” He pronounced the word with absolute precision and gravity. “It would not take ten strong men to defeat me. It would take very little, in fact. I have known, from my earliest memories, that I am a fragile thing who must bear the suffering.”

Kerensky’s mind raced as all the strange rumors and observations of the boy added up. But one question overwhelmed him and spilled out before he could stop it.

“Why are you trusting me with this?” This was knowledge men would quite literally kill for, and the boy had just _told_ him. Unexpectedly, too, if the looks on his sisters’ faces were anything to go by.

“Gleb trusts you enough to bring you here and arrange this. And I trust Gleb,” Alexei answered simply. As Kerensky looked at the group of young people, he realized he had had it all wrong. The guard and the scholarship boy were not reliant on the royals - quite the opposite, if anything. 

“I propose a council,” Anya began, getting back on track. “A private council consisting of we who are in this room. We can apply political pressure in small ways, we can throw our weight behind the charitable causes and relief efforts that need it most.”

“And, if it can be done in secret, we can hear petitions,” Alexei added. “I will not be a tsar who does not know my people.”

Kerensky sat back, then caught the gaze of Dmitry.

“You’ve been very quiet, young man. And yet here you are. You come from the streets, do you not? I know the rumors about you and your origins.” Upon the boy’s startled look, he smiled slightly and added, “Count Ipolitov kindly permitted me to stay at his home when I was traveling. He spoke very highly of you.” Dmitry relaxed.

“So, you know how things can be. You are not sheltered or under any illusions. Why are you here?” Dmitry looked surprised to be asked a direct question, but then replied.

“I was eleven years old, and the most stubborn girl I ever met plucked me out of the gutter and offered me a ladder to get out of the mud. All because she saw that my suffering was because of her family’s actions. And the rest of them followed suit. I will stand by them anytime, anywhere. They know what’s right and they try to do it.”

Kerensky looked between the young people gathered in front of him. Despite the sinking feeling in his gut that knew this wouldn’t be enough, he couldn’t say no.

“Well then. We can try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Thank you all for your incredible patience over the past couple of months. Originally, this chapter and the next one were supposed to be all one chapter, but then it got away from me, so you're going to be getting TWO chapters soon! The next part will hopefully be up within the week. As always, a huge thank you to my crazy groupchat and to all of you who have so kindly read and commented. 
> 
> Also, a side note: if you're interested in Romanov history, the "Alexander" that Alexei references was Alexander I, the grandson of Catherine the Great who ascended to the throne following the murder of his father, Paul I - historians are divided over the role he played (if any) in that conspiracy.


	11. love is a river i wanna keep flowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another crowd, another moment shared.

_July 1920 - St. Petersburg_

It wasn’t enough.

It was, for a little while. Once the tsar’s fury over his children acting without his permission subsided, they were able to persuade him that it was a good compromise: they could act in his stead without him having to actively be responsible for all their opinions. It was much harder to paint a pair of pretty young women and a calm, serious teenage boy as evil threats, and their popularity soared, with hundreds of petitioners lining up under slight pretexts just to speak to the young royals.

But as with all good things, they quickly came to an end. The novelty soon wore off, and it became apparent that the princesses and the tsarevich had limited power to enact real change. The tsar refused to take them any more seriously than he did other reformers - perhaps even less so. 

What they hadn’t anticipated was the backlash from the hereditary nobility. Fearing for their own futures and envious of the rising popularity of Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei, they whispered poison in the ears of the tsar and the most powerful aristocrats. Nothing about the children themselves - no one would take that risk - but rumors that factions were hoping to use them as pawns in power grabs. Paranoid and already feeling the loss of power, Nicholas acted drastically and quickly: he dissolved the Duma indefinitely.

If he was hoping to assert his own power or popularity, he couldn’t have made a worse choice.

Two weeks after the Duma dissolved and the riots were still lining the streets. The Bolsheviks, previously slipping in power, were recruiting left and right. The one thing keeping them from seizing even more power was their party’s internal struggles - the bitterly cold winter had led to pneumonia tearing through the countryside, carrying off Lenin as one of its victims and leaving his party with only his writings to guide them and too many would-be successors vying for power.

That didn’t make the screaming crowds outside the palace walls any less terrifying, though. They screamed day and night for the tsar to appear, to resign, to appoint this minister or that advisor, to give up his power, to do a thousand things. The tsarina was constantly on edge, and the guards no longer smiled the way they used to. Only Maria and Anastasia knew that Alexei slept with a pistol under his bed and that Gleb had been teaching him evasive exercises to try to avoid physical contact should the worst happen. And only Anastasia knew that, every night, Gleb slept on Maria’s balcony (or in her bed, Anya didn’t ask for details), her rebel knight.

It was hard for Anya to sleep through the night, between the fear and the noise. On this particular night, the angry shouts seeped their way into her dreams, transforming and twisting into images of horror. Her family beckoned her before morphing into horrifying demons that tore at her hair and clothing. The corpse of her mother’s favorite holy man gripped her with a bony hand and tried to drag her into a glowing abyss filled with eerie green light and insects. Mobs flooded the palace with torches and weapons, and they closed in on her and her family, until her family disappeared and she was left alone. One of the men had Gleb’s face, and then he raised his gun -

Anya woke with a scream, bolting upright and on her feet before she was even full awake. She bent over, gripping her knees and breathing hard as she tried to force herself back into reality. 

“Anya!” She jumped in surprise as Dmitry burst in from her balcony window, a thin blanket half-hanging off one shoulder in his haste. Instinctively, she bolted into his arms, which closed tightly around her, warm and familiar and strong as his hand moved a soothing circle on her back.

“The voices… and they keep coming back… I keep seeing faces, so many faces,” she sobbed into his chest. Dmitry’s answer was merely to tighten his hold on her and bend down so he could press his chin to her head. 

“It’s alright, it was just a dream. You’re okay, you’re okay now,” he murmured. After a moment, Anya drew back, suddenly curious.

“How did you get in here?” she asked. Dmitry shuffled his feet and offered up a sheepish smile.

“I may have… been taking a page out of Gleb’s book? To a degree, I mean,” he hastily added, realizing a second too late that there was definitely an element of Gleb’s nighttime activities that he was not imitating. When Anya still looked confused, he clarified again.

“I’ve been sleeping on your balcony. Just in case, you know.” Anya stared at him for a moment, unable to reply. “You’re still shaking,” he noted. He grabbed her arms gently and led her back to her bed, where he awkwardly perched beside her.

“Is that better?” Dmitry asked after a quiet moment. Anya nodded, but the tension in her face betrayed that this wasn’t quite the case. She sat for a moment, then spoke quietly.

“Tell me a story, Dima.” Dmitry looked up and smiled slightly, remembering another day and another scared girl who asked him to tell her a story. And he knew exactly what story he was going to tell.

“Okay. I’ve got one for you, one I think about sometimes still. It was a June day, and I was ten. And there was a parade, and a girl, and a crowd of thousands.” He grinned at her, knowing she would follow along. 

“This girl, no older than eight, sitting as straight and calm and proud as a damn queen. Everyone was cheering. I couldn’t stop staring.” He grew contemplative. “I don’t know why, but I started running after the carriage, calling out her name. I still don’t know how she heard me, but somehow she did. And she looked at me, and then she smiled. The parade kept going, of course, and she disappeared into the sun. But somehow I knew, if I ever had the chance, I’d find her again.” He realized he’d stood up at some point, and shifted, a little embarrassed. “And then one day… I did. Or, she found me. I’m still not quite sure.”

Anya grinned up at him, her terror forgotten. 

“Alright, I suppose it’s only fair I tell a story now, don’t you think? There was a parade on a hot day, not even a cloud in the sky to get in the way of the hot sun. And a boy caught my eye somewhere in the middle of that crowd.” He elbowed her playfully as she continued.

“He was thin, not too clean -” she went on, ignoring the insulted exclamation from Dmitry and his playful stalk away from the bed. “He managed to dodge between all the guards and looked right at me. I tried so hard not to smile, but I couldn’t help it. And then… he bowed.”

At that, Dmitry turned and looked back at her. 

“I can’t believe you remember that,” he said, a soft wonder in his voice. “Everything that’s happened since, and you remember that?” 

Anya stood up and approached him uncertainly.

“Of course I do. It changed my life,” she said with a slight, inexplicable tremble in her voice. Dmitry turned around, suddenly so close that she could see every fleck of gold in his eyes. 

“I think I knew, even back then, that if I ever had a chance, I’d find you again,” Dmitry said quietly, so low that Anya could barely hear it. 

“I knew it too. I never knew why, I just… felt it,” Anya admitted. Dmitry grinned slightly, his usual mischief creeping back in.

“And then you went and did it,” he teased. Anya couldn’t suppress a smile at the memory.

“I did, didn’t I?” she laughed. But her laugh died quickly on her lips as Dmitry’s gaze bore into her and she was suddenly very, very aware of how close they were standing and of the fact that she was in her nightgown and that his arms were bared by the thin white undershirt he was using to sleep in. That realization was quickly followed by a series of other, mildly embarrassing ones. _How had she not noticed before?_ The scruffy, skinny boy had somehow, before her eyes and yet without her fully noticing, turned into a tall, handsome man. Her eyes roved over his defined jaw, his strong arms, the defined chest muscles visible beneath his shirt. 

The electricity between them - and the gaze he had noticed roving over his body - gave him hope. Dmitry leaned in towards her slowly, heart thundering and forcing himself to give her every opportunity to stop him or pull away.

She didn't.

Their lips met for the first time since that day on the riverbank, and yet her lips felt like home. For a moment, they embraced gently like they had as teenagers, him holding her carefully, all too aware that the woman in his arms was one of the most royal people in the world. Dmitry pulled back as that occurred to him. No matter their friendship, what place could he have in her life like this?

Then his thoughts were forced down a new road as Anya grabbed his face and pulled him back to her, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly. And _this_ was nothing like a princess, nothing like the chaste peck of the past. This was his Anya, a woman, all fire and brilliance, and so he wrapped his arms all the way around her to press her closer and kiss her the way he wanted to.

Anya ran one of her hands through his hair, noting as she did so how he seemed to intensify his kisses when she did that. Then his tongue slipped past her lips and she couldn't suppress a slight gasp. She could feel him smirking against her lips and broke free to smack his shoulder.

“Are you laughing at me?” she demanded. Dmitry smirked back at her, lips swollen and hair mussed, and a shot of pleasure went through her as she realized she had done that to him.

“At you? Never, Your Highness,” he replied with a mocking little bow. She gripped his arms, half to pull him back to her and half to satisfy her curiosity as to the feel of those strong, solid biceps. 

“Good. I think I prefer your mouth to be doing things other than laughing.” Anya was a bit taken aback by her own boldness, and by the looks of him, so was Dmitry. But he recovered quickly, and before she knew it, he had her pinned between him and the edge of her bed, one of his legs pressed between her own.

“Is that so? Because I can think of a lot of things that would fit the bill,” Dmitry whispered, moving his way down her neck and relishing the tilt of her head to give him more access. She lost her footing and fell backwards onto the bed, where she could look up at him, still standing above her with a look in his eyes like nothing she'd seen.

Anya paused for a moment, considering. She was no idiot, nor a naive child. She knew what could come next, if she wanted. And she knew it would only happen if Dmitry knew she was completely, absolutely sure. She looked at him, her favorite face in the world, running a hand through his hair in that gesture he always did when he was nervous, and made up her mind.

“You talk too much, Dima. Haven't you heard that actions speak louder than words?” She knelt up on the bed so she could place a hand on his chest. “Speak as loudly as you can,” she said in a low voice.

Dmitry didn’t need to be told twice. He surged forward to kiss her again, letting his hands run up and down her body to learn every curve and dip as hers did the same. He pressed forward until he was all but kneeling over her on the bed, at which point he stopped and stood back up again. Anya sat back on her feet, surveying him, all rumpled hair, flushed cheeks, and swollen lips, his sleep shirt rucked up on one side to expose a strip of smooth, tanned skin. 

“Anya,” he began, “you have to tell me you’re sure. I can’t… I won’t… if you’re not…” he stumbled, trying to find a way to say it without making her think he didn’t want her (because _oh God he did_ ) and terrified that she would hesitate and then quietly, softly tell him that _no, this isn’t right, stop please_. The moment seemed to stretch out forever before she rolled her eyes in a gesture that was pure _Anya_.

“Oh Dima, you are such an _idiot_ ,” she groaned, half-laughing. Then, more seriously. “Come here,” with a tone so regal that Dmitry was overwhelmed with the urge to knock her off her feet and show her a thing or two about control. He compromised by playfully tackling her back on the bed and kissing her soundly, where they stayed for a few minutes, until Anya pushed him back from where he was methodically sucking marks into her lovely ivory neck.

“Off,” she demanded, gesturing to him. Dmitry smirked as the decision to have a little fun with her lodged itself in what remained of his logical brain at the moment. 

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific,” he teased. Anya flushed, her nerves returning. A look at Dima’s gentle, mocking smile gave her the courage she needed to lean forward and slide her hands under the hem of his sleeveless shirt, grinning as he let out a hiss when her cool hands slid up his chest and danced up his muscles like fingers on piano keys. Getting the hint, he quickly stood up, yanked the garment over his head, and tossed it on the floor.

She couldn’t help staring. His skin was lightly tanned, with a dusting of hair on his chest. The muscles that had been slightly visible beneath the thin fabric of his shirt were on full display now, and they twitched when she got to her feet and leaned in to run a curious hand over them. Dmitry pressed his lips together, struggling to keep his cool. 

“Your turn,” he whispered in her ear, and was rewarded with a flush creeping up her cheeks. He let his hand creep down to the hem of her nightgown and murmured in her ear, “May I?” Anya nodded yes, too self-conscious to speak, and he took his time, running his hands up her legs, slowly going higher and higher under the hem. The lightness of his touch surprised her - his hands were rough and broad, as she’d imagined (because _oh yes, she had imagined plenty_ ), but whisper-gentle against her skin. He looked to her for permission, but she was already a step ahead, pulling the ivory nightdress over her head, leaving her in only her light, plain underwear. 

She resisted the urge to cross her arms in front of herself as Dmitry’s eyes moved up and down her nearly bare body, instead hovering her hands awkwardly around her waist, then plopping herself on the edge of the bed in an attempt to make herself more comfortable. Just when the silence was becoming overwhelming, Dmitry leaned down and kissed her _hard_ , until they toppled backwards onto her bed. He allowed himself a moment to just look at her and slowly map out her body with his lips slowly trailing lower and lower, one hand reaching for her ivory breasts, but apparently he was taking too long for Anya’s liking.

“Is that all you can do? I thought you had quite the reputation, I was looking forward to a demonstration so I can judge for myself,” she goaded, a sly grin on her face. He braced himself above her, their bare chests pressing together and his legs, still in their brown trousers, slotted comfortably between hers. He began kissing his way down her body, pausing to lightly tug a nipple between his teeth and earn a surprised gasp from her, moving lower and lower until, even in her pleasant haze, she had an idea of where he was going - which was confirmed when he leaned back and lifted one of her legs over his shoulder. This didn’t seem very fair to her, even if it did send a jolt of heat right down to where a scrap of lace and cotton still covered her most intimate parts - or at least it did until Dmitry’s nimble fingers slid them off her.

“Dima…” she began, reaching down to tug at his pants, but he shrugged away her attentions, instead lifting his head to meet her eyes. Anya had to stifle a gasp - Dmitry’s eyes were blown wide with arousal, dark and gleaming in a way that caught her breath in her throat.

“Tell me if I do something you don’t like. Promise?” he asked. She nodded, and he leaned down to kiss her again before pulling back with a wide grin. 

“That goes double if you _do_ like something,” he added wickedly, not even giving her the chance to reply before his lips descended again and his tongue licked into her. Anya had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep herself from releasing some sounds that would most definitely give them away - and she had zero interest in being interrupted, especially when he shifted slightly to suck gently on the little bundle of nerves that made her buck into his mouth. 

“Dima, oh my God, that’s…” Anya gasped, squirming under his ministrations. Dmitry pulled away for a second, ignoring her whine, to tease her a little.

“I take it we can put that in the ‘like’ column, then?” he teased. In reply, she gave him a little shove back to where she wanted him, and he chuckled as he returned to his task, sending interesting vibrations through her. He slid a finger into her wet center, doing his best to ignore the increasing tightness in his trousers to focus on making this as good as possible for her. He added another and crooked his fingers just right, and Anya let out a yelp, the slightly uncomfortable stretch of first intrusion giving way to something much better. She reached down, almost on instinct, and knotted her hands in his hair as he continued. A shivering sort of heat started at her center, growing outward as Dmitry’s long, nimble fingers continued to thrust, angling to find that spot that made her vision blur. Between their careful work and the attentions of his tongue, Anya soon unraveled around his fingers, his name on her lips halfway between a cry and an exhale. 

As she caught her breath, Dmitry slid up the bed to her side again, pressing a light and tender kiss to her lips. 

“Alright, then?” he asked, suddenly awkward and shy. As ever, she read him like a book and grinned wickedly. 

“I’d say so.” Anya noticed him shifting unsubtly to seek friction where his pants were obviously tighter than they had been, and she found she rather liked knowing it was because of her. 

That being said - those pants needed to go. Now.

“Are you going to do anything about that?” she asked, gesturing vaguely at his obvious erection and stumbling over her words in an attempt to sound confident and sultry. Dmitry quickly began wriggling out of his pants, then stopped short, his pants off but his underwear still on.

“Wait. Anya, I don’t want to leave you with… you know. Consequences. Maybe we should…” To his surprise, Anya flushed even redder. 

“Dresser. Third drawer,” she muttered. A slightly confused Dmitry untangled himself and crossed the room to locate whatever it was she was directing him to. After a bit of rummaging, he found it, and a whole world of questions opened up.

“Anya. How on earth did… _why?_ ” he asked. She fumbled for words, finding herself still fighting embarrassment and modesty even after what they had just done. 

“Maria… she, uh. She… procured some of those, and I found her in my room… putting that one in there. She wouldn’t take it back, said something about… about you…” Anya’s voice trailed off so that Dmitry had to strain to even hear the last two words, but when he did, he couldn’t suppress his laughter. And when Anya looked indignant, he only laughed harder.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he apologized, still giggling as he climbed back into her bed with the bit of rubber in his hand. “I just… your sister figured it out before we did,” he explained. He stopped laughing suddenly as a shudder-inducing thought crossed his mind. 

“I just realized how she knows how to get these. Which means _he_ probably knows too. God, I’ll never hear the end of it,” Dmitry groaned, rolling onto his side dramatically. Anya propped herself up so she could look down at him.

“I’d _really_ rather not mention Gleb right now. Or my sister. I think we have some unfinished business,” she murmured. Dmitry wasn’t going to argue with that, reaching up to kiss her sweetly. He stood up again to rid himself of his boxers, turning his back to her briefly. A giggle emerged from the bed behind him and he looked over his shoulder to see Anya clapping a hand to her mouth.

“Something funny, Your Highness?” he asked. She shook her head, tilting it to the side appraisingly.

“Just deciding if reality lives up to the dream or not.” 

“Oh, so you’ve dreamed about this, have you?” He smirked at her and clambered back on top of her, pressing down just slightly. 

“Yes, Dima, I’ve dreamed about your ass.” Anya replied with such a dry, regal tone that he couldn’t help laughing again. Anya’s grin quickly turned to a gasp when the laughter sent interesting sensations through where their bodies were pressed together. Gently, Dmitry reached over and pushed a damp bit of hair off her face and pressed their foreheads together.

“Alright?” he asked in a low whisper. She nodded her consent, her absolute consent, and he fumbled with the condom with unsteady fingers, suddenly more nervous than he expected. As always, she seemed to sense his feelings as if they were his own, and she gently placed her hand on the side of his face.

“I just want you, Dima. I don’t care about anything else. Just you.” That was enough. He guided himself into her, slow and careful. Anya hissed at the unfamiliar stretch, but it was a good stretch, and she shifted her hips to meet him closer. For a second, Dmitry hovered above her, unmoving - half out of a desire to not hurt her, and half out of some secret belief that if he moved, he would wake up from this dream.

But he didn’t. A strange pride welled up inside of him, that a princess could choose a street rat and con man, that they somehow chose each other. That soft tangent was quickly disrupted by a groan from beneath him.

“Are you going to move or do I have to do all the work?” she demanded, with a remarkable amount of regal dignity for a woman laying naked on her back. “Men are such… oh!” Her quip was cut off by Dmitry pulling back and then slamming his hips back into her. As he quickened the pace, she quickly adapted, wrapping her legs around him to draw him closer to her and running her hands down his back, admiring the feel of the tense, strong muscles there. She could feel the tension coiling low in her belly again, a little slower and warmer than before but definitely leading in the same direction, especially when he slid a hand between them to touch her with a slowly increasing intensity.

“Dmitry, I…” 

He leaned down to pull her into a messy kiss, tangling one hand in her hair as she responded in kind, running her hands through his hair until it poufed up to a ridiculous height. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, let go, it’s okay,” he whispered in a refrain, snapping his hips at the angle that made her cry out. That was enough to push her over the edge, coming with a muffled cry of his name on her lips, feeling as if a galaxy was bursting within her. The sound of his name in her wrecked voice just about did Dmitry in too, and with a few more thrusts, he came with a stifled moan, trying his best to keep quiet.

He rolled off of her and got up to subtly rid himself of the condom as she stood up to put her nightgown back on - the idea of sleeping in the nude had little appeal for her. When he returned to the bed, he hovered awkwardly, unsure if he should climb back in or return to his balcony. Anya rolled her eyes and threw back the covers, answering that question for him. As soon as he did, she curled up into his side almost automatically. Dmitry put an arm around her, lazily stroking her bare shoulder with his thumb and marveling at the gentle domesticity of the moment, until the silence became awkward for him.

“Well… fuck,” he finally said. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he cringed internally. Anya looked up at him, solemn for a moment, before giggling.

“I agree completely.”

They lay there for a moment longer, then he burrowed down into the covers, suddenly tired. As soon as he did so, though, a small hand smacked his arm.

“What? Kicking me out of your bed already? I see how it is,” he said, faux-annoyed. She punched him in the arm again.

“Of course you can stay!”

“Then what is it?” he demanded, genuinely confused as to what she wanted.

“Put some pants on, you ridiculous man! What if someone comes in?” she cried. Dmitry cracked up at her indignation, but obeyed, pulling his underwear and pants back on as slowly as possible but leaving his shirt off. This seemed to meet with Anya’s approval, as she burrowed into his arms immediately and closed her eyes, looking much less like a princess and more like a perfectly ordinary woman in her lover’s arms. 

The last thought before he drifted off to sleep too was how odd it was that the anger of violent crowds could have led them to moments of such love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you thought I'd abandoned this fic, didn't you? Surprise, dear readers, I have returned! And I hope this chapter will make up for my extended absence! This one is for the squad, more than ever, and I hope you enjoy some of my turns of phrase ;) Leave a comment, if you're so inclined?


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